Fairies and Ink
by I'mInk
Summary: THIS STORY IS DISCONTINUED! OC based story with Juvia as main second character.
1. This is not Amsterdam

**This is my very first fanfiction. Sorry if I overlooked some mistakes. I checked it twice, but my English just isn't that good yet. I will be posting every week (I hope). It can take longer than that, because I write the chapters in Dutch, and then translate them. That's also the reason I often repeat the same words too much. Sorry about that. I would love to get tips, because I really want to get better at writing. See ya! IamInk**

I woke up on the street. No, I didn't go to a party last night and became drunk. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in my own bed. But this wasn't my bed. How the heck did I get here?

I was lying in a street. No, it was more like a small space between two houses. It smelled like urine and dead things. As if this was a slaughterhouse instead of just an alley. It led to a wide canal with many houses along it. Was this a city? It didn't look like Amsterdam, the city where I lived. This place remembered me of something, but I couldn't remember what is was. It was like someone stuffed the gap in my brain that was once my memory with cotton balls.

I started walking along the canal, but I stayed away from the edge. What if I couldn't swim? My footsteps were a little uneven too. It was really easy for me to fall in the water. While I wondered what I would do if I felt in the water, I noticed a little boat navigating through the canal. The men on board were shouting something to someone at the other side of the canal.

"Hey, watch out! Make sure you don't fall into the water!"

I looked across the canal. I could understand why they said it: a girl was walking dangerously close to the edge. She had blonde hair with two pigtails and she wore blue clothing. She had a pink tattoo on her hand, but I couldn't see what it was from this distance. Maybe a flag?

I walked on, wondering what I was going to do. I started getting scared. I didn't even know this town! And I didn't even know if I had ever been here before. But it didn't feel like I was reaching in the gap in my memory when I thought about this place. So I was pretty sure I had never been here before.

Alright Ilse, just keep it together. Slowly, my brain started working again. I decided that it was best if I went to the town hall. Maybe I could ask someone there what this place was. I discovered that the closed public building was the guild called Fairy Tail. What on earth was a guild? Whatever it was, I was sure that I could ask someone about this place. And ask where the nearest hospital was, because I was sure that there was something wrong with my brain. What if I had a concussion?

When I arrived at the building, second thoughts came up. From inside the building came a very loud noise. It sounded like someone was fighting. Now and then there were shouts like: "Natsu, give back my underwear!" and "When someone joins a fight, he is a man!"

A little anxious, I looked inside. It was a mess! Half of the people inside were drinking beer, laughing like maniacs and cheering for the other half that was fighting each other. I saw a woman who was drinking a whole beer barrel. And a boy without clothes, who was chasing another boy who was waving around someone's underwear. A little ashamed, I looked the other way. Okaaaay, let's not look that way anymore. There was also a young girl talking to a, a... cat. Of course. And they all had the same tattoo, but in different colours.

I had just decided that they were all nuts, when a voice behind me said: "Are you always spying on people?"

I turned around. The voice belonged to a small old man. And with small, I mean small like a child. But he was at least eighty years old, if not any older. He looked at me with a questioning gaze. Although he was small, I could feel that he was somehow really powerful.

"I, I, I am lost. A-and I thought that I could ask for help here. But I think I will look somewhere else and..." I muttered, while staring at my feet.

The old man started laughing. " Of course you can get help here." He led me inside the building. I didn't really want to go inside, but something told me that I could trust this man. So I decided to act on instinct and followed him.

Timidly, I walked through the crowd, but they didn't even notice me. They were too busy with their beer and fights. The old man walked to the back side of the building, where the pub was located. He seated himself on the desk, with his legs crossed and accepted a glass of beer from the girl behind the bar. He looked at me.

"Tell me, what's wrong?"

I still had the feeling that I could trust him, so I told him everything I knew since I had woken up. He listened carefully and nodded every once in a while.

About half an hour later, when I came back from the toilet, I saw the old man (he told me to call him master) talking to someone. It was the girl I had seen walking along the canal. She smiled at me kindly as I joined them, although I was a little shy.

The master laughed and said: "There you are, Ilse. This is Lucy." He pointed towards the girl. "She offered that you can stay with her until your memory is back. She was looking for a roommate anyway. She needs someone to share her rent with."

I looked at him. "But I don't even have a job! How am I supposed to help pay her rent?"

Lucy grinned. "Why not work here at Fairy Tail as a waitress? We are always short on them because they all leave. Most of the time because they think everyone is crazy."

I stared at her. Working as a waitress? Here? "Actually, I think that too. No offense of course. But everyone is fighting the whole time." I wanted to say that I really thought that all those people were a hazard to society, but it was too mean to say that. But she grinned. It was clear that she was holding back her laughter.

"Wait and see when Erza comes back from her job. You'll see how easy it is to get them quiet." She said while taking my hand. "Come on! I'll show you our apartment!" Wait, had I said that I wanted to move in with her? Oh well. We started moving through the fighting mob. Miraculously, Lucy didn't get hit by any of the thrown tables and beer mugs. "They'll watch out where they aim." she said. "You don't want Erza to be mad at you, but lately they are scared of me too." But it didn't work for me. By the time we were outside, I had beer in my hair and a nasty bruise from a bad aimed chair on my back.

On the way to Lucy's apartment she told me all kinds of stories about the guild. Such as who were all the members and what kind of weird habits they had. The woman who was emptying the beer barrel on her own was Cana Alberona. And the man who was constantly shouting that you should be a MAN was apparently called Elfman (a very fitting name). The guy without underwear was Gray Fullbuster and the one he was chasing was Natsu Dragneel. Was I wrong, or was Lucy blushing when she talked about him? She was walking really close to the edge of the canal. Maybe that was her weird habit.

Then, she turned around and looked at me. "What kind of magic do you use?" she asked.

I stared at her. Magic? The kind you read about in fairytales? That didn't exist right? "What do you mean?" She was talking nonsense. What was this place?

"Well, I am a Celestial wizard, Natsu is a dragon slayer and Gray uses Ice magic. Master said that you had some kind of magic too, but what is it?" Lucy had a questioning look on her face. Was this a joke? It had to be.

"Listen, magic doesn't exist. Are you sure you are alright?" I leaned against the wall of a house. Magic didn't exist. It couldn't. Was I hallucinating?

Lucy looked worried: "Of course magic does exist. And I feel fine. I should be asking you that question, you look really pale." Suddenly her eyes widened. "Ilse, magic has always existed. Around the entire world. If you don't know anything about it, you must be from somewhere else. Are you from Edolas?"

"Edolas? What is Edolas?" I felt really sick right now.

Lucy jumped forward and caught me. I didn't even realize I was collapsing. "Don't move," she said "I'll go get the master." And she ran away, her pigtails dancing around her head. I watched her go as she sprinted back to the guild. And then everything went black.

Black and white. Suddenly, everything was black and white. It was like all the colour of the world was sucked away. I watched as all kinds of events played before my eyes on hyperspeed. It was like watching a movie on fast forward. But I didn't realize anything of it. Everything happened and I could only watch. I wasn't even able to think.

Then, the movie played on normal speed, and I was able to think again. It was now as if I was in a manga. Manga? That word sounded familiar. There was that annoying feeling again. Like my memory was tied up and trying to break free. I could see Lucy, talking to the boy she had called Natsu. They were about 15 meters away from me, but I could still hear every word they said. Then I realized that I wasn't listening... I was reading! The words Lucy spoke were floating next to her. Then the picture stood still, and started zooming out. Lucy and Natsu became smaller and smaller, and in the end my whole dream changed.

For some time everything was blurred. When I could see again, I was sitting in a chair. I looked around, and noticed that I finally could move freely. I was in a room that was really familiar to me. There was a bed, a desk and a closet in the room. Through the window I could see that it was already dark outside. And... I was holding something. It was a book. No, more like a little comic book. Manga? I started looking it through. It was about Lucy? I glanced at the cover: Fairy Tail. The name of the guild? With a pounding heart I searched through the book, and found what I was looking for: the conversation between Lucy and Natsu. What did this mean?

"Ilse? Master, she needs help!" I could hear a voice from a distance. Was it Lucy?

"We'll take her to the infirmary." Someone was lifting me. I felt my body going numb.

"No... No, I need to see what is going to happen..." my voice didn't work. I had to know. Because when I was lifted, I had dropped the book. And it fell open on a page, where you could see someone dying... But I couldn't see who it was.

"Go away! She needs to rest! You can come back later."

"But Grandine..."

"Don't call me that! It's Poluchka! Now leave!"

Voices drifted through my sleep. I groaned. Their voices bounced around in my head, like someone was hitting me with a rubber hammer. If they had to wake me up, couldn't they just do it peacefully? This was not the way I liked to be woken. I tried to open my eyes, but the lights were too bright. So I decided to slumber away again.

Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep forever, and I woke up again, I was looking at the face of a really severe woman.

"Finally, it was like I wasn't going to wake up at all. Do you always sleep in?" She gave me a glass of water. "It's important that you keep hydrated. Otherwise it will affect your health. And you could also use some sunlight."

Dizzily, I sat up straight and looked around. I was in a big room with a lot of hospital beds in a row. Mine was next to the window. The woman walked to the door that gave access to the hallway.

"They are waiting to visit you all day long. They don't even know how much rest the average patient needs." She opened the door. Lucy and the young, blue haired girl came in.

Lucy smiled: "How are you? I was really worried, you were looking so pale!" She pointed at the blue haired girl. "This is Wendy. She can help you regain your memory." Wendy smiled, although she looked a little shy. She wasn't older then twelve, could she really help me?

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ilse." I shook her hand. Her hair was long and dark blue. I was really fascinated by it. Was this her natural hair colour? I noticed that, she too, had the weird tattoo Just like Lucy. But instead of on her hand, hers was on her arm.

Lucy studied my face. "Ooh, you're wondering about the tattoo? That's our guild mark. Everyone who is a member of the guild has one."

It looked like an arrow with a flame on the end. But it also looked like a fairy, trying to make a huge jump. Fairy Tail?

Wendy sat down on my bed. "Master Makarov said that you can't remember anything from before you woke up here in the city." I nodded. "Maybe I can cure you with my sky magic." Wendy said. "It's possible that your memory is blocked by some sort of curse or something."

There it was again. _Magic..._ "Lucy said something about magic too. Does it stand for something else?"

Wendy looked puzzled. "Of course it doesn't stand for something. Magic is magic." She put her hands on my forehead and started to mumble. I had the urge to lean back. But if Lucy believed that this could really help me, I had to trust her. Suddenly, Wendy's hands started to glow. Light-blue light shone through the room. First, nothing happened. But then my head started to clear up. The heavy feeling was going away, and left me with a peaceful mind. Was this Wendy's doing? Was this really... magic? Wendy withdrew her hands. She looked at me hopefully.

"And?" Lucy asked. "Did it work?"Did this mean that Wendy was already done?

"Errr.." I tried to remember where I came from, but I couldn't find anything. The only thing that had changed, was that my head didn't feel so heavy anymore. "No, I still can't remember anything from before the moment I woke up in that stinking alley."

Wendy looked puzzled. "I actually didn't expect it to work. If it had worked, I would know." She addressed to Lucy. "But it's weird. It didn't feel like her memory was blocked at all. It just wasn't there. It's not something I can cure with my magic. Her memory just isn't present, like it was stolen or something. Maybe that... What's wrong Ilse? You look so scared."

Was I? I didn't even notice. But I needed to ask: "What is it that you guys keep talking about magic? Magic this, magic that. It just doesn't exist! It only exists in fairytales! Is this some sort of bad joke?" I started feeling uneasy. No, I was already uneasy. Now I was really scared. "I mean, I'm not crazy, right?" My eyes were shooting back and forth between the two of them.

Lucy swallowed nervously. "Err, Wendy? Can you get the master for us? I think he and Ilse need to talk."

Master Makarov was a really nice person. Patiently, he kept telling me that magic did exist, and that it was a part of everyday life. He told me everything about guilds and the magic council. And how wizards in guilds earned their money by going on jobs. In the beginning, I refused to believe him. But everything he told me did fit in the picture. And after showing me real magic by ordering me to go on a job with Lucy and Natsu, I had to believe him. There was only one thing I didn't believe. He kept saying that I had magic in me too. He had said that, if I wanted to, could learn a form of magic too. That part was just too stupid to believe. Me and magic? No!

After Poluchka, the woman who had treated me, had said that I was healthy again, I moved in with Lucy. She was really kind. I slept on the couch for now, but that didn't matter. She had always time to listen to my doubts and always supported me. To help pay her rent, I worked as a waitress in Fairy Tail and at night in a restaurant close by. It wasn't much, but I was happy. I had a place I could call home. Even in this world, where I was sure I didn't belong. But even when I felt safe and happy, while I served beer to all the crazy wizards in Fairy Tail. I still thought about the book I had seen in my dream. Something was about to happen.

**Sorry about the cheesy ending, but I couldn't think of anything else. How is it so far? Thanks for reading!**


	2. Cards, Magic and Ink

**I'm a little early posting this chapter, but I was already done. So I had no reason to not upload it. Please give me a review, it would really help me out. I need to improve my English and writing skills.**

Of course, I was thinking that I was fell short paying my part of the rent. And maybe I was right. With even two jobs at Fairy Tail and the other restaurant I only earned 20.000 jewel a month. Less than half Lucy's rent. And we also had to pay for groceries. Lucy was working as hard as she could. Together with her team (Gray, Erza, Natsu and Happy) she went on jobs almost thrice a month. We where able to manage, but that was all. Partly because Natsu and Happy often joined in eating. Even talking/flying cats didn't suprise me anymore.

But well, at long last I decided to go study magic. But then there was the the question, what kind of magic? When I asked master Makarov, he said that I should ask Cana, who was very good at fortune telling. I wondered if I could really trust that. But Oh well, this world couldn't get any weirder right? This was probably considered to be normal. So I asked Cana what kind of magic I should study.

Secretly I respected her a lot. Aside from the fact that she could consume huge amounts of alcohol, she simply looked like a really strong person. She wasn't scared to give her opinion about something and she walked around wearing a bikini without being embarrassed. So yeah, someone with a lot of self confidence. And she used Card Magic, so fortune telling seemed really fitting for her.

When I was done working, I asked her if she could predict what kind of magic I should use. We sat down face-to-face at one of the tables in the guild. Cana drew her cards and explained how it worked.

"First, I need to adjust my cards to you, so we'll start with looking at your past. Then you can tell my if the cards are correct." She said.

I giggled. "Then we have a problem. I don't know my own past. How can I say if you're correct?"

Cana grinned. "Yeah, that's a little difficult. Err... Then we'll just have to assume that it works. I expect it to. I haven't made any mistakes since I was a little kid, or that time I was possesed by someone."

I shrugged. "No objections. Let's get on with it. But are you still going to look at my past?"

Cana thought about it for a moment, and then said: "No, I think that I'm going to rely on the present for now. It's harder to say if I'm using the cards, or just using the things I know about you. So I maybe need to reveal some of your secrets. Then I can see if the magic is working. It must be something that I can't know."

I swallowed nervously. I didn't want anyone to know about my dream. I really wouldn't want to scare them with something that could also be just my imagination. Cana started laying down cards on the table. She put three in front of me, five in the middle and two in front of herself.

"Alright, it works like this: the cards in front of you describe your present. The five in the middle describe your destined magic. And the two in front of me describe your future. But you we don't have to look at them, if you don't want to. Now, can you turn around the left card in front of you?"

I did as she asked. On the card, there was the picture of a singing bird. The upper left corner said "Music". Cana and I burst into laughter. It was right! When I wasn't talking to someone, I was singing. Everyone would love to shush me one day.

"Well, it isn't what you call a secret. But it is the truth." Cana kept laughing for a moment, but then she was serious again. "Turn the middle one."

I stopped laughing too, and turned the card in the middle: this time it was the picture of someone who was dreaming. One half of the face looked peaceful, but the other look tensed. Like the person was having a nightmare. I swallowed nervously. This was what I was afraid of. I had to make sure that I didn't say anything about the book.

"Do you dream a lot?" Cana asked.

I took a deep breath. I shouldn't give away anything. "Yes, I do. The dreams often don't have a meaning, but they are there. And sometimes there are also nightmares. But just those common things, like not being able to run away from something." It wasn't an entire lie. I did dream a lot, but it weren't really nightmares. They were short dreams, where I would walk through a house and do everyday things. Things like brushing my teeth, eat, read and so on. The only thing that bothered me was that the house where my dreams took place, seemed so familiar to me. And of course I couldn't remember why.

"Hey, Ilse! Is everything alright?" Cana snapped her fingers in front of my face. With a shock, I came back to reality.

"Sorry, I'm a little tired. I had to work an extra hour in the restaurant, because I had broken one of the plates. The owner is really fond of his china." I yawned. I really was tired.

"Come on, let's finish this. Everything is correct so far, right?" Cana ordered a glass of beer for herself and took a drought. I nodded. "Okay, then turn the last card."

Hoping that it wasn't something embarrasing, I turned the last card. It showed a kneeling person with a weight on his head. Above it said: "Conscience"

Cana studied the card."Do you have an uneasy conscience? Did you do something unauthorised?" She sniggered.

"No nothing like that. I only feel a little guilty because I don't contribute much to Lucy's rent. I would like to be able to help more. That's also the reason I want to learn magic." I stared at the cards. Altogether, they exactly described who I was at the moment. Cana was amazing!

She hiccuped. "Good, now we know that that's correct, we can move on with the cards that describe your magic." With one move, she turned around all five cards.

Curiously, I leaned over the table to see them better: they said "Art, Imagination, The writer, The Pencil and The Ink.

Cana studied every card carefully. "Hmmm..." she muttered. "It doesn't directly point to a specific kind of magic. At least not some kind I know. You'll have to find out yourself. Or maybe you could ask Reedus to learn you the basics of Pict Magic. Maybe you can develop it further yourself. 'Cause it does look like the cards point towards that direction. Although I don't understand what The Writer has to do with it."

I stared in the distance. Me again. Drawing was one of the things I just cannot do. Once, I had tried to illustrate Lucy's novel. But I didn't come further than some stickmen. And I had to learn Pict Magic? Fate was just playing with me.

"Well, since this is done, are you interested in your future? Cana brought me back to reality.

"Err... No thank you. I think it's better if I don't know what is going to happen." I wasn't really curious about the future, I already had my doubts.

At that moment Gildarts came in, Cana's father. She sighed, rose from her chair and walked towards him. And then, I did something really stupid. If I hadn't done it, things could maybe become less scary. When Cana had left, I turned around the future cards, and regretted it. One said: "The betrayer". The other said: "The Ravine" Quickly, I turned them around.

My first thought was: I have to make sure Cana doesn't see this. I stacked all the cards on the table and walked to Cana. Before she could stop me, I took the pack of cards she had in her hand an shove my cards between them. Then I wished her goodnight, waved at Gildarts and ran home.

Lucy wasn't home yet, and I was so relieved! I had actually expected her home today, but it often happened that she stayed away a few day extra. So I didn't really worry about it. Right now, I could enjoy a moment alone. There were things I needed to think about.

First, there were the future cards. Was someone going to betray me? Could I trust the people I knew? The betrayer couldn't be me right? I would never, ever betray my friends! Of course, there were some people in the guild who I found suspicous. But if I had learned something, it was that the wizards of Fairy Tail were really loyal towards each other. Even Gajeel, who I found kinda creepy, seemed to have a soft side. Especially when Levy was around. Maybe it was someone I hadn't met yet? This was really giving me a headache! Time to start thinking about something else. I had chores to do.

Lucy and I had agreed that I was the one to do all the indoor chores when she wasn't home. When she was home, we didn't have a chance to clean the house at all. Because most of the times we had finished cleaning the house, Natsu and Happy bardged in. And we could start from the beginning. I smiled. Although he always came in uninvited, he also cheered everyone up. Or annoy them to death. While I made the bed/couch, cleaned the bathroom and Lucy's desk, I sang as loudly as I could. Partly because I just didn't want to think about this night's events anymore. I delayed my magic studies till tomorrow too. Right now, I just wanted peace in my mind. When I had finished cleaning, eating and bathing, I layed down on my couch. I was a little scared to dream again, after what had happened today. But I needed my sleep. I had to learn magic. It was my destiny.

"Come on Ilse, we're catching up on them!"

Gasping for breath, I ran after Gray and Erza. It was easy for them. Their endurance was fine. But I had worked as a waitress for months. So I hadn't got any chances to exercise.

"You guys go ahead. Just let me catch my breath for a minute." I hadn't finished my sentence yet, but Erza grabbed my arm and dragged me with her.

"You wanted to help us with the job right? Then you are coming with us!"

"Oof, alright alright. I'm running already. Let go of my arm, would ye?"

We ran along. For the request, we had to catch a gang that had been making rampage in this village for a while. They robbed people and destroyed stuff. We caught them in action when they tried to rob Lucy, who was the bait. Then we had split up in two groups to chase them. Lucy, Happy and Natsu went via the main roads while Gray, Erza and myself wanted to cut the gang's pace by taking alleys and backjards. I was really excited. This was my first job, en although my endurance was crap; I didn't want to screw up.

Something moved at my left. And then at my right. Crap! We were being ambushed!

Gray and Erza stopped running, and I bumped into them. Suddenly we were surrounded. Apparently, the gang had brought some reinforcements. Only three men had tried to rob Lucy. And we were surrounded by nine!

Erza was the first one to start fighting: "Requip!"

"Ice make: Lance!" Gray yellled behind me.

He took three men, and Erza five. That ment that there were two left for me, and they attacked me. This was the moment to prove what my magic was worth

."Ink magic: Binding!"

(This may need a little explanation: my magic works by means of a pencil and ink. By drawing figures in the air, I can use different attacks. If I draw a spiral, like I did now, my enemies are binded by a black rope, made of ink.)

Unfortunately, my magic wasn't really strong yet, so they easily broke the ropes. "Single cross!" I drew an X.(You can compare this attack with the slice of a sword.) This one worked. One of the two bandits got blown away, but the other blocked my attack. I pulled out a second pencil from the bag hanging from my belt. "Ink magic: Double binding." With both pencils, I drew another spiral in the air. This time, the ropes were stong enough. De man lost his balance and fell on the ground.

The battle was over. Now I noticed how silent it had become. Had Erza and Gray watched me the whole time? A little ashamed, I walked back to them. "

Err, how did I do?" I was so ashamed!

Erza nodded approvingly. "You're not that strong yet, but if you train hard it'll come. This was good for your first job. She tapped one of the unconscious men with her foot. How fast had she beaten them? "Let's go find Lucy and Natsu and bring these morons to jail. Then we can get our reward and go home. Can you tie them up for us?"

I smiled. I was nice to have the feeling that I was needed, although it was only for tying up bandits.

Natsu was complaining all the time it took to go back to Magnolia. Half of the time it was about how he hadn't had the chance to beat up some criminals, and the other half he mumbled that he had to throw up. Oh well, that's Natsu for ya.

That evening Lucy and I invited Natsu, Erza, Gray and Happy to come over for dinner. Normally, they would come without an invitation. But this time we had actually prepared a meal for them. Wendy and Carla were there too. It was to celebrate that I had become an official member of Fairy Tail! When we came back from the job, Erza and Lucy had taken me to Mirajane. She had stamped the guild mark on the inside of my wrist. I was so proud! I had earned my place among these people. During the entire night, I could only smile. We ate until we were full, played hints and held a pillow fight. In the end, when Erza, Gray, Wendy and Carla had left, we had to drag out Natsu and Happy. They had fallen asleep already. Once outside, we threw a bucket of water on them. Then we could finally go to bed(or couch). And for the first time in months I didn't dream.

But we didn't wake up peacefully. Nope! Erza rushed inside our room, threw us out of our bed(and couch) and gave us our clothes.

"Make sure you are at the guild in half an hour. We have a problem!"

I moaned and searched for my socks. Erza rumbled with her fingers on Lucy's desk. She looked nervous. Wait a minute, Erza nervous? This had to be really bad. Erza always looked cool, even under preassure. What was going on? I grabbed my pencils and mini ink jar. Lucy checked if she had all her keys, and we ran towards the guild.

**Thank you so much for taking the time to read my fiction. If you have any tips, or noted any mistakes, please leave a review and tell me!**

**IamInk**


	3. Searching for water

**Hey everone! **

**Here it is: chapter 3! I have been working really hard to get this chapter done a little earlier than normal, because I probably won't have much time to write next week. There are a few sentences that might not be correct, but I just couldn't find another way to translate the Dutch. So sorry for that. **

**Enjoy!**

On the way to the guild Erza told us what was going on.

"Juvia is missing. She isn't away on a job, and she also isn't in the dorm. We don't know why she is gone, and Master thinks that we all should go look for her."

I wondered why he was so worried. When a wizard stayed away longer than usual, it did stand out. But most of the times we didn't have to worry, and after a few days the wizard was back again. So why was master so worried about Juvia?

"Why so worried? She can take care of herself right?" Lucy said. Erza shrugged, as far as that's possible while you're running.

The guild was unusually calm. Everyone stood together in groups, discussing and studying maps of the city.

"The plan is to, instead of just rampaging through the city, split everyone up in teams and divide the area. We start with looking in Magnolia. And when she isn't found, we look in the nearby towns." Erza explained.

"But why do we think she is in trouble?" I asked. "People often stay away longer than suspected."

Erza sighed. "Juvia and Wendy had planned to go on a job this morning. But Juvia wasn't home. And the little picture of Gray was still on her nightstand."

I nodded. Juvia wouldn't go anywhere without that picture. She always carried it with her. So if she had left it, something had to be wrong. Erza brought us to Mirajane.

"Here are Lucy and Ilse, where are you going to divide them? Mira looked up from her clipboard. She checked all the names on it with her finger.

"Luce, you go with Gray and Natsu. Ilse, I want you to stay here in case Juvia happens to come back to the guild."

"Okay, sure. Alright." Why did I feel so disappointed? Because I was finally a true member of Fairy Tail, but still got the least important task? Wasn't I good enough to help searching? And I really wanted to help Juvia. She was always nice to everyone, although she could be a little weird sometimes. "Sure, I'll stay here. Would you like something else?" I tried to keep things light by acting like a waitress. For the first time, Mira didn't appreciate it.

"No, stay here and make sure the guild isn't left behind unguarded." Mira put down her clipboard on the bar. "Now everyone has gathered, we can get to work." She, Erza and Lucy walked towards one of the tables. Leaving me behind.

The guild was really empty without everyone. I missed the laughter and all the fighting. To kill time I started washing the beer glasses and wiping the tables. But after four hours, no one returned. I had already put all the tables and chairs back into place, washed the flour and readjusted the requests on the board. Eventually, I started walking circles around the tables. I was so bored! Another hour. Nobody came back. Where was everyone? Another circle. Let's make a square for a change. Pffff... I sat down and rested my head on my arms. Slowly, my eyes closed. If no one was going to return, I could also take a nap...

And we were back in my bedroom again. Or at least, I thought this was my bedroom. Since my dream always started here and there was a bed in it. I waited for my body to move by itself. Normally it did, and I started doing everyday things. I waited. Nothing happened. I could move freely and decide what to do myself. Weird. I looked around. Everything looked normal. What should I do? I walked towards my desk, but then froze.

Wasn't that... the Fairy Tail manga? Yes, the feared book lay on my desk. I picked it up and opened it. I didn't really know why I was so scared of it in the first place. It had only been a dream then. Actually, I was dreaming right now. I flipped the pages. There was the conversation between Lucy and Natsu again. And a little further... I really didn't want to look. But I had to. Alright, there we go. I flipped the page and started reading. And while I was reading, the dream changed. I was being sucked into the manga.

The picture moved through the streets of Magnolia. Somewhere in a side street, it stopped. Shocked, I realised that this was the same alley as the one I had woken up in. Somewhere in the end, I could see people. I followed them as they walked to where the alley came to an end. One of them started pushing the bricks of the house on the left. He kept trying different bricks until he found one that gave away. The wall corrugated, as if it was made out of water, and they walked straight through it. I was just in time to jump through it too, when the wall became solid. They started talking. I could hear from their voices that there was a man and a woman. They whispered so softly that I couldn't understand what they were saying. Apparently, the man said something special, because the woman looked surprised for a moment. Then she started smiling.

"No way? when did you..." The man shushed her. He pointed at the door at the end of the hallway where we were standing. We followed him. He opened the door and there... was Juvia. I gasped. She looked horrible! She had to be unconscious, because she almost wasn't breathing. The man put his hand on her head.

"Within a few hours we will be able to start the ritual. Let's make our preparations." From his pocket, he took a small notebook. "What date is it today?" he asked, while he was taking notes. The woman answered. What! That was yesterday! Muttering, he noted the date. Then he put away the notebook and said: "Help me with the water wizard." He and the woman lifted Juvia from the ground and put her on a table. The woman took a deep breath and started reciting a spell. And before I woke up, I could see Juvia's hair slowly turning black.

"Sheesh Ilse, you weren't meant to be sleeping!" Mirajane rub-a-dubbed with her fingers on the table. Dizzily I stood up from my chair. I had the feeling that I knew something very important, but I couldn't remember what it was anymore.

"Mira, what time is it?" She crossed her arms and frowned.

"Half past five. And if you would like to know: Juvia is still missing." My eyes widened. Juvia! Suddenly, the dream came to my mind. I grabbed Mira by her shoulders.

"Juvia! I know where she is! We have to be quick! I don't know what they are doing to her right now, but her hair turned all black and she was unconscious and I..." I took a deep breath, and started again. But a little more calmly this time. Partly because Mira looked like I was crazy. And maybe I was.

"Alright then. Let's assume that Juvia is in that alley, we should go and take a look." Everyone had already returned from their search. Erza looked at Lucy. "Lucy, you, Gray and Natsu go to that place and search for Juvia. And take Ilse with you, so she can show you the way. And of course I'll go with you too." I looked up surprised.

"You guys really believe me?" Erza looked at me. There was something in her eyes... distrust? Didn't she trust me? "I... I mean, it's only a dream. But because Juvia is missing, I thought it could be a clue." She nodded.

"Weird things like that happen all the time Ilse. We need to investigate every clue we've got. And it doesn't really matter if it isn't right?" I shook my head. No, it didn't. And if Juvia really was there, the whole problem was solved. But why was I so nervous? I watched Erza as she spoke with master Makarov and glanced at me a couple of times. It was because of her. I was so nervous because she didn't trust me. You could see that by the way she acted. Why would she distrust me?

Lucy tapped my shoulder. It was time to leave. Gray and Natsu were already arguing outside.

"Ice pants!"

"Flame brain!"

Oh right, Juvia. We had to go rescue Juvia. Why did I get so distracted when we something so important to do? I followed Lucy as she walked outside, and with us five (and Happy of course, the silly blue cat would never leave Natsu.) we went to go find Juvia.

"It has to be here somewhere." We walked along the canal. I looked into every alley we crossed, but they all looked identical. You would think that I could remember where I had woken up. But no. Not a single clue. Every alley was the same as the previous one.

After a lot of alleys Natsu and Gray started arguing again.

"Are you missing your girlfriend?" Nastu teased.

"No way! I'm worried! Just like everyone else from the guild. And she is not my girlfriend. I don't even call Lucy your girlfriend, right?" Gray yelled while he kicked Natsu. I looked at Lucy. She was giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Lucy is my best friend. When she is in danger, I'm worried just as much as you would be. And as Erza would be." Natsu objected. The two started fighting. Lucy and I waited until they were finished. After a few minutes Erza interfered, and they were quiet again.

Natsu wrinkled his nose. "Hey Gray, when did you start using perfume? You smell like cat pee."

"I don't use any!" Gray yelled.

"No, you're right." Natsu agreed, suddenly being serious. Well, as serious as Natsu can be, witch isn't that serious. "The smell comes from that alley."

Cat pee? That was what my alley had smelled like. I ran around the corner. He was right. I almost fainted."Ugh!" I gagged. "This is it, I'm hundred percent sure." They followed me as I walked to the end of the alley. "The man started pushing the bricks over here. There is a brick somewhere that acts like a button and..." I did't have to finish my sentence, 'cause Natsu and Happy started pushing bricks like crazy.

"The one who finds the button first doesn't have to cook for a week!" Natsu yelled.

"Aye sir!"

"Err guys..." I tried. Whatever. There was no way they would listen. I walked towards the other side of the alley and pushed a brick. I had remembered correctly. The passage appeared in the exact same place as I had seen in my dream. "You guys are trying the wrong wall. The passage is in the left one. And you are searching for the button at the right wall." A little ashamed, Natsu and Happy followed us as we walked through the wall and into the house. The passage closed behind us. We sneaked through the hallway to the door, opened it and...

Empty. The room was empty. Speechless, I stared at the floor. I had been right about the secret passage in the wall. And everything looked the same. The only thing that was missing was a certain water wizard. What had happened?

The team started investigating the room. I helped them. Maybe there was a clue that would tell us where she had been taken to.

"Oy Ilse," Gray pointed at something on the floor. "I think the cork on your ink jar is loose. There is ink on the floor." I walked towards him.

"That isn't possible. The jar isn't even a jar. It is a sphere. I can dip my pencils into it, but the ink can't get out. Only if I want it to. I crouched next to the ink stains and studied them. "This isn't even my ink. This one is more blue." The rest joined us. Natsu crouched too and... smelled the ink.

Why not.

"That's Juvia's scent! They smell like rain!"

"Really?" Lucy screamed. Nobody even thought about the fact that rain doens't really have a scent at all. Oh well.

"Natsu, can you find out where Juvia is right now?" Erza asked. Natsu walked around the room while he sniffed the air.

"There's a really weak scent from... that way!" He rushed through the hallway, back outside. We ran after him. Lucy and I yelled at the same time:

"Natsu! Can you please slow down a little?" He didn't listen (of course he didn't) and ran ahead. Back to the canal, through the park, lots of streets and finally: the church.

Natsu sniffed the air again. "Her scent is here, but it has changed a little. But I'm sure it's her."

We looked around, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"You really think so?" Gray asked. "And why would she be at the church? You just smelled the ice-cream stall, didn't you?" He pointed to the right, were indeed stood an ice-cream stall. Natsu became mad.

"Oh yeah, and you know it better, mister ice-cream pants?" They ran towards each other, ready to fight.

"Stop it!"

To everyones amazement (mine too), I was the one that began shouting.

"You guys are fighting from the moment we left the guild. Do you really think this will help find Juvia? Or that it makes you stronger? NO! So stop acting like children and behave yourselves. Our only task is to find Juvia and we can't keep being distracted by your stupid actions, got it?" I pointed at Natsu. "You need to stop mocking Gray. Of course he is worried. We all are. And Gray, you need to stop reacting so heavily to Natsu all the time!"

They all stared at me. "Ahem" Erza coughed. "With that being said, let's get back to business. Natsu, can you track Juvia again?" Natsu and Gray sulked, but moved away from each other. Natsu crossed his arms.

"It looks like the scent comes from the church. But it is a little different." He frowned. "I am still sure it's hers." Gray shrugged.

"Well, we don't really have a choice. So let's investigate the church."

We split up in three teams. Natsu and Happy went into the church itself. Erza and Lucy went asking the people around the church if they had seen anything suspicious, and Gray and I were going to look if there were any side entrances to the church. We had agreed that, if we had found anything, we would shoot a flare into the sky. Erza had bought three in a shop nearby. I wondered if it was good idea to send Natsu inside the church, because I didn't want him to interrupt a mass or something like that. That would be really impolite.

"Come on," Gray studied the side wall of the church. "let's walk around it and look for anything unusual."

While we walked, I couldn't help but ask if he was worried about Juvia. He frowned and looked the other way. "It's getting really annoying that everyone tries to get us together. Don't get me wrong, she's really nice. But just don't have any special feelings for her."I smiled.

"I know, you say that all the time. But if you don't have any feelings for her, why do you get jealous when Lyon tries to impress her?" He stared at his feet. Was it my mistake, or did actually blush?

"Well, you know. I think Lyon shouldn't bother her. I know myself how annoying it is when someone bothers you all the time. And how do you know Lyon tries to flirt with Juvia? You never met him!" I snickered.

"No, you're right, but I've heard enough stories from Mirajane. She always talks about who should be with who and..." I stopped. There was something suspicious about the wall of the church. It looked like the brick pattern was interrupted, af if there was a secret door in the wall. It looked exactly like the passage in the alley. I walked towards it and dragged Gray with me.

"Oy, what are you..."

"You think there is a secret passage in the wall here? Like the one back in the alley?" He studied the wall.

"Hmmm... Yes, it could be. Is there a button too?"

"Let's find out shall we?" I put my hand on the wall. The button of the door in the alley had been in the same place where normally a door handle should be. I tried te same here. And yes, the passage opened. I looked at Gray. "Shoot the flare. I think that we've found her."

A few moments later, we were all together in a dark tunnel. Behind us, the wall became solid again. Erza put her finger on her lips and ordered us to follow her. While we walked, she requiped into her Thunder Empress armour. The tunnel came out in a staircase that went really deep into the ground.

"Her scent is becoming stronger. We're close." Natsu whispered. At the end of the very long (*pant pant*) staircase was a large cave. But before we walked further we could hear voices. I gasped.

"They are here." I whispered. "Those are the people who have kidnapped Juvia." I drew my pencils from my belt, and dipped them in the ink. Lucy took one of her keys, maybe Scorpio? Gray stripped the upper half of his body. Then we shouted and ran into the cave.

Oh shit.

Juvia, what did they do to you?

**Sorry, there hasn't been much magic and fighting in this chapter. But I promise there will be a lot in the next chapter. Writing is so exciting! I love to do it. If you would leave a review, it would make me super happy (Aye!) It really helps me out. **

**Thanks for reading!**

**-IamInk**


	4. Fights and Questions

**Finally! I'm done! This chapter didn't flow out of my keyboard like the previous ones. I actually rewrote it twice. Aaaargggg! Sorry if I overlooked some stupid mistakes. I was really tired while checking this, but I didn't want to wait another day to upload it.**

**Enjoy!**

"Juvia!"

What was this? Juvia was floating in a sort of sphere. (A small version from the one in the naval battle at the Grand Magic Games) Her hair was still black, and her skin was slowly turning black too. Behind the sphere stood the woman, who was still reciting the same spell. The man was taking notes in his little notebook.

At the moment we came rushing in, he looked up alarmed. He shouted something to the woman, but I couldn't hear what he said. She stopped her spell and ran around the sphere so she could defend it. For a moment we all stared at each other and tried to imagine the others next move.

Erza was the one to break the silence: "What are you doing to Juvia?" she asked with a stern tone. The kidnappers didn't answer. Erza took a step forward. "I'll ask you again: What are you doing to Juvia?" Silence.

Then, as if we had rehearsed it, we all attacked.

You would expect that it isn't that hard for five (six, sorry Happy) wizards to beat two of them. But then you can of course overlook the fact that your enemy is very good at creating stuff out of stone.

"Stone make: Soldiers!" The man slammed his fists together and then to the ground. Five stone creatures rose up from the ground.

I recoiled. They were exact copies of us. It was man against stone. Erza fought against stone Erza, Natsu against stone Natsu and so on. There was even a stone Happy, flying around and dropping stones on the head of the real Happy.

I looked around, ready to fight. But there was no one to fight. Everyone had a stone duplica, except for me. Didn't the man notice me? But if the kidnappers didn't know I was here, that meant that maybe I could rescue Juvia.

As silent as a mouse and with my pencils ready, I walked towards the sphere. The kidnappers were too busy watching my friends fight that they didn't notice me. I tried if I could enter the sphere. Nope, the outside was as hard as glass. Then a little magic circle underneath the sphere caught my eye.

Damn it! The woman had locked the sphere before she ran towards the fight. It was highly probable that she would be the only that could enter the sphere. Great. That meant that I had to defeat her so the lock could be destroyed. Well, I wasn't strong. But if I could suprise her, I had a chance of defeating her.

I sneaked around the sphere until I stood right behind her. Was she so distracted that she didn't even notice that someone was sneaking up to her? I'm not exactly what you call a ninja. For a moment I got distracted too, because the fight wasn't going well.

Lucy had summoned Virgo, who tried to break the stone Lucy. But every time she damaged the stone copy, she fell apart and was replaced with a new one. Erza also seemed to have gained some serious damage. Her attacks were still pretty fierce, but I could see she was limping. Natsu and Gray stood back to back while they tried to burn/freeze their stone copies. But the stone soldiers were imune to almost everything. The only way to win this fight, was to free Juvia and get the hell out of here. I focused on the woman again. I had to end this quick.

"Ink magic: Double cross!"

She reacted really fast.

"Ink magic: shield!"

She used the same magic as me. Of course. As if this wasn't difficult enough for me yet. I kept attacking. Unfortunately, the only attacks I knew so far were 'cross' and 'binding'. But she had far more spells. Not only could she summon a shield out of ink, but also things like "Arrow rain" (Where she drew an arrow in the air, and I had to jump around to not be pierced by one) and "Darkness" (Whereby I got blinded for a few very annoying and confusing seconds).

But there was something wrong with this fight. I realised it when I hid myself behind the sphere to catch my breath. She didn't come after me. She just gave me the time to rest.

_She was holding back._

Was she playing a game with me? Or was it somthing else? The man hadn't attacked me either. They just let me be. And the woman only attacked for the show. Didn't they want me to get hurt? I had to test this.

I took a deep breath... and rushed back towards the woman. When she saw me, she summoned a shield again. This confirmed my suspicions. Every other enemy had probably attacked me by now, and the only thing she did was defend herself. I had to exploit this further.

"Ink magic: Double cross!" I yelled. I kept firing crosses until her shield started to break down and she had to attack me. If only to keep me away for a moment and have the time to summon a new shield.

"Ink magic: Lance!" she screamed. A black lance flew towards me. I stayed in my place and started counting to 10, while I stared the woman in her eyes.

When she realised that I didn't intend to dodge the lance, her eyes widened. "Ohredos!" she screamed. The man looked our way. He too watched in terror when he saw what was happening. But he couldn't really do anything from 10 metre away. But he still tried to save me. He broke the arm off the stone Natsu that came running by and threw it at the lance.

It didn't work that well. The lance did change direction, but not far enough to miss me. It pierced my left shoulder.

"Aargnnnnnn!" I grinned my teeth. It hurt like hell, but I tried to get new energy from this pain. I still couldn't help it that my legs turned into marshmallows and I fell on the ground. I could hear that Lucy screamed my name, but I didn't turn around to see her. I still stared at the woman. The man had focused himself on the fight between my friends and their copies again, but he looked my way from time to time.

Slowely and with lots of groaning I sat up straight. My shoulder screamed for attention, but my thoughts were somewhere else: I can use this in my advantage.

The lance was gone, but I still had my own pencils. I took one, and drew a spiral around my neck. The woman saw what I was going to do and ran towards me. I looked at her furiously and hissed:

"I can finish this spell with ease and strangle myself. Then your idiotic try to save me just now is useless." She looked at me in horror. Why? "But," I continued. "if you free Juvia and make sure that your stone wielding boyfriend stops attacking my friends, I'll let myself live. That's the deal."

I was serious. I really was prepared to kill myself for the sake of my friends. Even though they would hate me for that.

She hesitated. Lose Juvia, or lose me. Why was I so important for them? Finally, to my amazement, she nodded. She snapped her fingers and the magic circle underneath the sphere disappeared. Despite of the pain in my shoulder I was able to get up and stand straight.

For a moment we looked at each other. Then I raised my pencil and yelled "Ink magic: Binding." Since I couldn't trust her. It could be a bluff. She fell on the ground while my black ropes wrapped themselves around her body. The man wanted to help her, but he was to busy with his own fight. Because while he had been distracted by me, my friends had been at advantage and were able to beat the stone soldiers, who didn't resurrect anymore.

I ran towards the sphere, while I supported my shoulder with my right hand. I threw myself in the inky water and pulled Juvia out. Her body was numb, but she was still breathing. "Gray!" I yelled. He ran towards me and lifted Juvia. I almost collapsed again, but was able to maintain myself. Meanwhile the rest of the team had joined us.

"The man?" I asked Erza.

"Unconscious." she panted. I looked at him. He was indeed unconscious and was lying on the ground. I sighed in relief and started collapsing again. But this time Lucy was able to catch me.

"Ilse, what happened? I saw how the lance hit you, but then the stone puppet was in the way." I groaned. My breathing went faster. I did lose a lot of blood. All this action had distracted me from the real pain, which I now felt in all its intensity.

"Come on, let's get out of here. We need to bring Juvia and Ilse to the infirmary." Erza said. I tried to walk, but my legs didn't work anymore. Natsu lifted me. Gray had Juvia in his arms, and we walked out of the cave.

"Call Wendy! And send someone to get Poluchka! We have wounded!" Erza shouted when we entered the guild. Wendy rushed to us. She first wanted to help me, since my wound looked far more worse because of all the blood. But I pushed her away with my good arm and nodded towards Juvia. She needed more help than me right now.

We were carried to the infirmary, where we were layed down in beds. I watched as everyone crowded around Juvia.

"I feel almost nothing!" Mirajane yelled as she took Juvia's pulse. Wendy layed her hands on Juvia's chest and started mumbling. I could tell that she was using really powerful healing magic. She continued until Mira sighed in relief and said that Juvia's pulse was normal again. Wendy also casted a pain-killing spell for Juvia before she came to me.

She inspected my shoulder. "Ilse, there is ink in the wound. So I need to clean it first before I can heal you. And that's going to hurt. A lot." I nodded, but started trembling. I hated these kinds of things. I'm really bad at dealing with pain when there is no action to distract me from it. With trembling hands I made a ball from my t-shirt and put it in my mouth.

I expected Wendy to use magic, but instead she took a bowl water and a clean towel. She dipped the towel in the water and started dabbing the wound. I groaned. It stung like hell. When she dipped the towel in water again, I saw it was coloured black from the ink. She kept dabbing the wound and cleaning the towel until no more ink came out of the wound. I didn't realise I was biting really hard on my t-shirt until Wendy started healing the wound with magic and I could relax my stiff jaws. Grrr.

While Wendy was busy with me, I looked at Juvia. She was breathing normally now, but her skin was still gray and her hair still black like ink. Did they put ink in her body? And why? And why did they want to spare me so badly? Was it because I used ink magic too? What the hell?

"Is the pain gone now, Ilse?" Wendy asked while removing her hands from my shoulder.

"Yes, thank you. It's much better." I replied. I tried to stand up, because I wanted to sit next to Juvia. But Wendy pushed me back into my bed.

"Ilse, I know you want to watch over Juvia. But you really need to rest. Not only because of your shoulder. You have also used up a lot of magic energy. It takes much longer to restore if you don't rest." I shrugged (Ouch! Not a good idea) and layed down. Wendy stayed with me until I fell asleep, while she checked Juvia's heartbeat and breathing from time to time.

I had a nightmare where my own body was made out of ink. I was tied up to a chair while someone without eyes yelled at me. He kept ordering me to change the future, and I could only cry and whisper that I wasn't able to. But my voice was so weak that he didn't hear me. I felt so helpless and scared while he hit me and kept shouting. It went on and on, and with every slap I recieved I felt my body going numb more. In the end I was nothing more but a puddle of ink. I couldn't move anymore. Suddenly the sun started shining and I felt myself drying up. I tried to scream. No sound. The sun burned and burned me.

Finally I woke up and hobbled to the sink. For a while I could only drink drink drink. Then I went back to bed. But I couldn't sleep anymore. I looked at Juvia. She looked better than before. She had a pained face, but that was better than having no expression at all. There was still ink in her body. Why had the kidnappers done that? Had she felt like I did in my dream just now? Helpless and scared?

"Oh Juvia. Please get better."

It would take a while for Juvia to get better. Poluchka and Wendy had layed her in a bath to soak all the ink out of her body. They had to refresh the water every 10 minutes. Every time they did that the water was black from the ink, but it didn't seem to help. It looked like the water itself turned into ink instead of the ink coming out of Juvia. Every day they thought of new methods to help her. Levy spent long hours in the library reading about ink magic, while Gray and Erza went to Lamia Scale to ask Cheria for help. But even the Sky god slayer couldn't do anything for Juvia. And all the time the guild was in a grim mood. Everybody was worried about the water wizard.

Gray was, even though he would kill me if I said so, the most worried of all. He didn't say much as he helped Levy with researching ink magic and how ink infected wounds should be treated. Even when Natsu was looking for a fight as always, he only reacted with a growl and walked away. And the most shocking: he left his clothes on. It looked like he had forgotten completely about his stripping habit.

One night, when I couldn't sleep again because of the pain in my shoulder and the irritation about Poluchka ordering me to stay in bed while I wanted to help searching for a cure for Juvia, I heard the door of the infirmary opening softly. I closed my eyes and acted as if I was sleeping. Since I incidentaly told Poluchka that I was having sleeping problems, she started cheking if I was asleep every night. Wich meant that she would check me every ten minutes when she had to refresh Juvia's water.

The door closed. Why had Poluchka come back? She had checked on me a minute ago. I could hear footsteps towards Juvia. Cautiously I glared through my fingers. Someone sat down on the bed next to Juvia's bath. Carefully the person placed a hand on her forehead. I couldn't see who it was because of the dark. The person was too robust to be Poluchka, so it had to be a man. But who would visit Juvia in the middle of the night and...

Oh.

I smiled. He was so predictable.

He started speaking, really softly: "Juvia... I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was unkind to you. I don't want you to stay in a coma without me having said sorry to you. So errr, sorry. I-I I want you to know that I like you. I don't know in what way yet. And the way you're dreaming of is maybe a little too much. But when you get better I will be nicer to you. I just didn't realise until now that I maybe have feelings for you. But please don't go crazy about it. So err... Just get better, okay? And yeah... That's what I wanted to say to you."

Gray got up from the bed. But before he could walk away something special happened. The moon came out from its hiding spot behind the clouds and shone its light through the curtains on Juvia's face. And instead of the pained face she had before, she smiled a little. Gray's voice did reach her. He smiled too, and walked out of the infirmary. He wanted to be gone before Poluchka and Wendy came to refresh the water and check if I was asleep. Grinning because of this special event I fell asleep.

Since that day Juvia started to actually get better. Her hair and skin slowly got their normal colour back. Maybe Gray's encouragement was all she needed to find a way to expel the ink out of her body. Everyone was relieved and happy, and the cheerful, usual mood returned to Fairy Tail.

After a few days I could finally leave the infirmary and move in with Lucy. (I never thought I was happy to see my couch again.) I resumed my magic studies and went on jobs with team Natsu again. Although Gray didn't always come because he wanted to do some solojobs. (Everyone knew that he was always helping caring for Juvia at those moments. As I said: predictable)Life was good again.

Of course we kept wondering why the kidnappers wanted to turn Juvia into ink, but we couldn't think of anything. I thought a lot about the fact that they wanted to spare me. I still hadn't told anybody, and I didn't really know why not.

Until the night that I met the kidnappers, of course.

**And, how was this chapter? The fighting part was really hard to write. It's the first time I wrote about a fight this long. You like my little Gruvia hints? I really like writing in English. It learns me so much more than the boring lessons at school. Please post a review, it would really help me out. What do you think is going to happen?**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-IamInk**


	5. Who they were

**Hey guys!**

**Oof! This was a hard one to write! Sorry it's a little shorter than usual, but I didn't have anything to put in it anymore. I wanted to save the rest for the next chapter. I checked the text really precise this time, but there are some words and sentences that I really doubt to be correct. But I just couldn't find another way to say it. So have fun reading! **

**-Ink**

"Iron fist of the Fire Dragon!"

"Ice make: Hammer!"

"Ink magic: shield!"

My shield was strong enough to hold their attacks off. I already had the chance to bind Lucy and Erza, and they were lying helplessly on the ground, yelling encouragements to Gray and Natsu. Happy should probably be around too, or maybe he went back to the guild to get help. Either way, he was nowhere to be seen.

Erza tried to requip, but luckily I knew how to drain the magic energy of the people I tied up now, so I didn't need to worry about her anymore. Lucy struggled to break the ropes, but it was no use. I was a lot stronger now.

Natsu tried to smash my shield: "Roar of the Fire Dragon!" I dodged the attack easily and desummoned the shield. I wasn't just stronger, but also a lot faster.

I sniggered: it was such a difference compared to a week ago. The power of the guild had really made me stronger. Ever since Yara taught me to use it I was even able to destroy my stone duplica within a matter of seconds.

"Ink magic: Arrow rain!" I yelled. Natsu had to recoil. In the mean time, Gray attacked me from behind. "Ice Make: Geyser!" I jumped to the left, through which he didn't freeze me, but Natsu. They started arguing:

"Watch out where you aim, Ice eater!"

"Watch out where you're standing, Flame brain!"

Perfect, the only thing I had to do now was to tie up Gray, and I could continue my task. Natsu was stuck in the ice, so he was put aside too. "Ink magic: Binding!"

This was all far too easy. While I was dusting myself off, Erza looked at me furiously. "Why Ilse? Why did you betray us?"

I walked towards her. Until now, the fight seemed fun. But now a lump in my throat appeared, and my eyes filled themselves with tears. All the excitement for the battle had toned down my worries and doubts. Now, they came back and made my head hurt.

"For your own good." I replied, almost suffocated by my tears. I knocked her unconscious.

**One week earlier:**

I was on the way to Lucy's apartment. Although I knew that I could swim now (we had a pool in the guild, duhh) I still stayed far away from the edge of the canal. I was able to swim, but my balancing skill were very poor. If I would walk on the edge like Lucy always did, I would fall in the water in no time, and I really didn't want to get wet.

While I was walking I thought about everything that had happened today. It had been a beautiful day. Juvia had woken up for the first time, and the whole guild had celebrated it.

I was there when she opened her eyes, which started to search for Gray right away, of course. For the first time, they didn't need to search for long: he never left her side, while he told her what was going on and helped her eat and drink a little bit. Juvia wasn't able to talk yet, but her expression was enough. She looked like she was in heaven, although she stayed rather calm.

That is one of the things I found special about her. She could always go crazy about Gray, but when he actually was with her, she was acting pretty normal, which was kind of a relief for the icy wizard. He started to relax more when he was with her, and she was just the same as always, but a lot happier.

Gray's dedicated behavior had to be a dream coming true for her. He didn't go on jobs with us anymore, which was a shame. (And it made Natsu kind of pissed, since he had no one to fight with on the jobs, except for the bandits we had to catch. The only one to fight with now was Erza. But... That wasn't exactly the same...) But it was really nice to see how he changed from being cold, to being really nice to the water mage.

Erza was very satisfied. She had tried for months to make Gray confess that he actually liked Juvia. And Mirajane was as happy as, err... Happy? (Aye!)

My magic studies were going pretty well too. I had been able to copy and improve all the movements the female kidnapper had used. I had even tried to fabricate some spells of my own, but they turned out to be a total flop. I smiled while I thought about the embarrassing moment when I used a self made spell on an opponent. Instead of gluing him to the wall like the spell was meant to, I glued myself to the ground, and Erza had to save me. Again.

Now grinning, I felt like doing a silly dance, pure because of my happiness. But I bumped into someone.

Suddenly, I couldn't see anymore. Shocked I stood still, while I tried to find my pencils. There was... Ink around my eyes. I felt two strong hands grabbing my arms and pulled me towards them, forcing me to walk along. I tried not to trip, while I walked forward.

Shit. Shit. Shit! I need to escape!

I tried to, but then I heard someone whisper and felt my arms being tied to my body. We walked further. I tried to scream, ignoring the hand on my mouth, which didn't work of course. We went around a corner, and the faint smell of cat pee found its way into my nose.

Crap! I should have known that the kidnappers would come back for me! They would certainly take me to their (not so secret anymore) hideout, and who knew what would happen then?

And indeed, when the spell that kept me in darkness was lifted, we stood in the same room as where I had first seen the kidnappers in my dream. The woman closed the door behind her. This was the first time I could actually study them.

The woman looked about thirty years old, with black hair and dark blue eyes. You could see the scars of earlier fights on her chocolate brown skin. She wore a long dress in the same colour as her eyes. When you would walk into her without knowing who she was, you wouldn't say that she was a bad person.

But the man was different: he was really pale, as if he had never seen the sun before. And his black cloak was full of dirt. His eyes were light blue, and they were looking in a different direction every time, like he was nervous. He had (if I counted it correctly) one hair, which was laying flat on his skull. Ohredos, the woman had called him, if I was right. I wouldn't want to meet him in the dark.

"What do you want from me?" I tried to look calm and brave, but my voice cracked. I was scared.

"We don't want anything from you Ilse, we only want to know how you are doing?" the woman replied.

"How I'm doing? Why would a kidnapper want to know how her victim is doing?" I squealed. The woman approached me, as if she walked towards a wounded animal: weakened but still dangerous.

"Ilse, I only tied you up to stop you from struggling and screaming. We didn't want you to attract any unwanted attention." she layed a hand on my left shoulder, probably to calm me down. The shoulder her lance had pierced. It had the opposite effect: making me more scared and angry. I looked at her hand as if I was looking at a big, hairy spider. But she smiled at me.

"Why would a parent kidnap their child?"

Wait, what?

My thoughts got interrupted when I entered Lucy's house, and tripped over Natsu's legs. Gosh, them again? They just had to come over, didn't they? Judging by the way Natsu lay on the ground, he had been kicked out of Lucy's bed by her. Happy was snoring on my pillow, mumbling something about fish. I sighed, gently picked the blue exceed up and put him next to Natsu. Once I was finally comfortable, after having to decide whether I would sleep under my blanket or on top of it, my thoughts picked up right where they had left off...

I had woken up in the same alley that reeked of cat pee four months ago. Yara and Ohredos, the kidnappers, found me, while I was lying on the ground and crying in fear, and took me in. They eventually started calling me their own child.

Yara, after she saw I was able to, taught me ink-magic, but at some point we had to stop. It was on a day when Yara had been gone for two days. Late in the evening, she came rushing inside our house (the left house at the alley, that one where the secret entrance leads).

She said that she had gotten a vision of Magnolia being destroyed by one of the demons of Zeref. The demon had slept for centuries underneath the city, and had been forgotten by everyone. Even by Zeref himself. It would wake up within half a year and demolish our city.

Shocked, I suggested that we should tell this to the magic council, but Yara objected that we would only cause major panic among the citizens. No wizard was able to take down the demon, not even a demon slayer. It was simply too strong.

That night, Yara came up with a plan. We were going to change the future. She wanted to do that by creating an ink demon and grant it the gift of prophecy.

Yara had the power of prophecy herself, but if she gave it to an ink demon (made of the same element as her magic), the power would increase tenfold and it would have the possibility to change the future. But only once.

To create the demon, we needed a body and a soul. Yara herself would be the soul, but the body had to be of someone else. And that someone had to be Juvia, since her body was practically made of water, so it would be easy to change it into ink.

I said that we could just ask her to help us, but Yara ensured me that the other guild members would try to defeat Zeref's demon another way. And she was a hundred percent sure that they could never succeed. We couldn't tell anyone about it. So we had to kidnap Juvia.

But there was more. Not only did we need a body made of water, we also had to collect a great amount of magic energy to be able to fuse the body with the soul. That's where I came in.

With help of Ohredos, Yara placed a lacrima inside my body, so I could absorb magic energy from Fairy Tail. Then they erased my memory and left me behind in the alley again, with the assignment in my brain that I had to go to Fairy Tail. That was three months ago. The only thing they did not expect, was that I would become so good friends with everyone in the guild.

I rested my head on my legs and groaned, while I repeated the entire conversation this evening.

After Ohredos had returned my memory (or at least, the part that he could give me. They hadn't done anything to my memory from before the first time in the alley.), we started arguing:

"I'm never, never ever going to betray my friends! I know that a water body is needed for the demon, but it doesn't have to be Juvia, right?" I yelled, while kicking the walls and acting like a spoiled brat. Yara tried to calm me down and Ohredos was only grinning really dumb. That guy was way too amused, which made me only angrier.

"Ilse, Zeref's demon will be here within two months. There just isn't any time so search for another water wizard. Only the waking of the ink demon will take at least a month. And Juvia is the most closeby watermage, so we've really gotta use her."

"This is freaking Fiore! There are more than enough mages closeby! And there's gotta be someone who is crazy enough to sacrifice himself for a good cause!" I screamed.

"Would they be as strong hearted as Juvia?" Yara crossed her arms. I stopped using the walls as punching bag.

No, they wouldn't. Juvia had the biggest and strongest heart in all of Fiore, for sure. A heart that was stubborn enough to stay with Gray, even when he turned her down from time to time. A heart big enough to be kind to everyone, even to her so called 'love rival'. There was no one with a stronger heart than Juvia.

"I think that we, as soon as we have defeated Zerefs demon, will still be able to bring Juvia back to her normal self. That wouldn't be possible with someone else." Yara said softly.

I considered all the options. Betraying my friends, for the saving of Magnolia? That was an impossible choice. No, wait. That wasn't true.

If Juvia could really be brought back to her normal self, then there wasn't really anything going on. The only one who would suffer from the betrayal, would be me. My friends would eventually, after being really mad and disappointed, live on. Only I would stay behind, knowing that I would never really forgive myself.

No, bad Ilse. Don't go making a drama series out of this.

But still, I would be alone, and I was not going to stay with these weirdoes who called themselves my foster parents. Even though I knew that everything she had told me was true, I could remember it myself, I just didn't want to stay here. I needed to know where I came from.

Amsterdam... Amsterdam... I already knew that there wasn't a place in Fiore called like that, so where was it? And what did my dreams mean? Questions, without answers, which I wanted to know so badly. I didn't have the time to start my own investigation, mostly because I didn't really want to leave Fairy Tail. But soon, when Fairy Tail wouldn't even want to know me, I would have all the time I needed.

I took a deep breath and said: "Alright, I'll do it. I will kidnap Juvia. But don't even dare to think that I'm doing this for you! I'm doing this for Magnolia and for Fairy Tail. And for nobody else, got it?" Yara looked at me joyfully.

"Well then, we'd better continue your training. You have to be a whole lot stronger than this." She said with a content smile. We agreed that I would come by every evening between 7 and 9 PM (the times I used to work in the restaurant) at the cave underneath the church to train. Then they let me go and I went straight to Lucy's house. Where I was right now.

I tried to count my breath, in, out, to stay calm. I found it horrible that I was going to betray my best and only friends, but I was somewhat relieved too. Now I knew what one of Cana's cards had meant.

**Pfff, that was a lot of information at once. I hope I didn't overdo it. I kind of lost myself in writing, after having a major block. I wonder if Yara and Ohredos are completely honest. Something in their story is missing... But we'll see that next time! ;) Mwuhahahahaha!**

**Thanks for reading my fanfic. And I want to give a huge shoutout to Child at Heart Forever! She's helped me so much! Arigato Gozaimasu!**

**-Ink**


	6. Betraying hurts A lot

**Hey Hey!**

**Sweet victory! I managed to write this chapter! I had to write the beginning three times before I got it right. Grrr. But, I'm done now. And I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Thank you for all the reviews! They helped me out so much!**

**Enjoy reading!**

**-Ink**

"Ohredos, open up! It's me!" I yelled while I kicked the wall several times. Some shuffling could be heard at the other side, Ohredos who unlocked the passage. We had arranged that he would wait at the other side of the wall, because I didn't know the exact location of the secret door and I didn't want to enter the house through the front door, because that would be a little suspicious, for I was carrying a sleeping water mage on your shoulders.

After making the well-known click, the wall became unsolid and I could carry Juvia through. She muttered softly in her sleep: "Gray-sama..." Ohredos took her of my shoulders and to my bedroom, where he laid her on my bed. She frowned for a moment, as if we had interrupted her dream, but then she continued sleeping peacefully. "Gray-sama..." Ohredos watched me as I put a blanket on her and then we walked out of my room.

"Where there any problems on the way here?" he asked as soon as I closed the door so we wouldn't wake up Juvia. I wanted her to sleep in the peace of not knowing.

I sighed: "Not really. I did get attacked, but with the help of the lacrima I beat them rather quickly." He looked at me disbelievingly.

"Ilse, you are two hours later than expected. If you were able to beat them that fast, then why did it take you so long to get here?" I crossed my arms.

"Hey, I'm not that strong. I had to cross whole Magnolia to get here, with a full-grown person on my shoulders. You just aren't very fast when you need to carry someone who's unconscious." It wasn't the whole truth. Juvia was really heavy for me, but that wasn't the reason it took me so long to get here. But I was not planning on telling him what the actual reason was.

I remembered the battle, and the expression on Erza's face before I had knocked her unconscious. I struggled to keep my tears form gliding down my cheeks. You have to believe me when I say that it's not fun to betray your friends, especially when it's for their own good. Ohredos raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't use up all the guild's magic energy, did you? We can't get it back now." I didn't know why I felt offended by his words, but I did.

"No, I refilled it with energy from Erza." I snarled. I had just lost all of my friends, and he started about that stupid lacrima in my body. I pushed him aside and walked towards the kitchen, sniffing angrily.

Yara was making calculations, probably about how much magic energy was needed for changing the future, while she enjoyed a cup of tea. She looked up disturbed as I rushed into the kitchen, but smiled as soon as she saw it was me.

"Oh Ilse, you've returned. How did it go?" She asked the question as if I just came back from school instead of a kidnapping. I ignored her completely and walked to te sink to get a glass of water for Juvia. While I watched how the water poured into the glass, Yara rose from her chair and joined me at the sink. "Hey, I know just how you feel right now, trust me."

_Shut up._

"I understand how difficult it is for you to betray your friends, even if you know you just had to do it."

_Just. Shut. Up._

"You need to know that me and dad really sympathize with you and..."

I snapped.

"Shut up! Stop acting like you are my parents, 'cause you're not! Only because of the fact that you took me in, doesn't mean that you immediately can call yourselves my parents. I have parents of my own, and as soon as this is over I'm going to look for them too. I don't need your compassion. You two are the reason I'm in this fucking mess! So just shut up!"

I pushed her away from me and ran back to my room. I wished the house was bigger, so I could get farther away from them. I really didn't want to see or hear them right now. I wanted to run outside and let my friends comfort me as they used to do. But that wasn't the case anymore. I had betrayed those friends and there was no going back now.

We had rented a small house for a few days at the edge of Magnolia, so we wouldn't be discovered right away. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen of course. All joined together by one hallway. We couldn't stay here for sure. In fact, we had to leave within a few hours. Natsu could find us easily with that nose of his. Yara and Ohredos had chosen a new spot to create the ink demon and Ohredos had brought the sphere there with help of his stone soldiers. Our new hideout was a ruin in the forest that was once the home of a dark guild, which was now destroyed. (You could guess who was responsible for that)

I entered my bedroom, sat down next to the bed and placed the glass on the nightstand for when Juvia would wake up. I looked at her and almost screamed, because she was looking back at me.

"Juvia..." I whispered while tears appeared in my eyes. "I can explain. Really, I can..." I wanted to continue, but started to cry hysterically. Finally, the tears came out that I was holding back for so long. I didn't want Yara and Ohredos to see them, because I didn't want hem to think that I was weak and that I needed them. I maybe had needed them when I first woke up in Magnolia, but not anymore. I cried for a few minutes, while I whispered that I was sorry from time to time. I didn't know who it was directed to.

At long last, I came to myself again, and tried to talk: "I *hiccup* really didn't *hiccup* want to betray you. *hiccup* It's just because *hiccup* I... *hiccup, hiccup*" I couldn't speak and in the end I was the one who needed the glass of water.

"Juvia understands."

The glass almost fell out of my hands. "Juvia? You *hiccup* can talk?" I sniffed while I moved closer towards the bed.

"Juvia knows everything about the plan to stop Zeref's demon, they told her." she said. I was dumbfounded.

"How... How... But why didn't you tell the rest of the guild?" I asked, not having hiccups anymore. _And why didn't Yara tell me that Juvia knew this?_ Juvia started telling what had happened to her:

"Juvia got kidnapped while she was still asleep, 'cause when she woke up she was in this weird room with miss Yara and mister Ohredos. She was scared, but miss Yara was really nice to Juvia and told her all about the ink demon." Juvia's fingers played with the blanket I had put on her. "First, Juvia didn't want to co-operate, but eventually she understood that it was necessary. And miss Yara is right about Fairy Tail. Juvia is certain that the other guild members will look for another way to beat the demon when they hear about it. Juvia thinks that she can trust miss Yara and mister Ohredos, since they had saved you. And even if it was a lie, Juvia doesn't know a single villain who would first offer to anesthetize you before they begin forming your body into the one of an ink demon. And if Juvia can help Gray-sama with this, she is happy.

A relieved smile formed on my face. So Juvia was okay with this. It felt like a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. Even though a lot remained. "Did they also tell you that we can maybe bring you back after Zeref's demon is destroyed?' Juvia frowned.

"No they didn't tell Juvia that."_ Why the hell not? That would only convince her to help more right? Why let that important detail out?_ Then her eyes started to sparkle.

"But that's wonderful! Now Juvia can save Gray-sama and return to see how proud he is of her!" I snickered and rose to my feet to get another glass of water, so Juvia could have some too. She looked kind of thirsty. No wonder when you've been in a bath for weeks and suddenly got out. I felt a little guilty.

The door of the kitchen was closed, and I could hear Ohredos and Yara talk inside. I couldn't help myself from eavesdropping. Yara was talking:

"Ohredos, I studied the book that describes anima's again, and I noticed something interesting. It appears that a large number of small anima's went astray and sucked up all kinds of unwanted objects and sometimes persons from Earthland to Edolas, but also the other way around. Could it be that Ilse is from Edolas?" Ohredos replied:

"No, that's not possible. She has magic in her body, even without the lacrima, so she has to be from Earthland."

"But she didn't know anything about magic, and although she suffers from memory loss. When she was raised in Earthland, she would have known about magic. It's our nature. Every toddler in Earthland knows what magic is and..." There was a loud thump, Ohredos who slammed his fist onto the table? I noticed he did that a lot these past weeks. He spoke again:

"We're wasting our time thinking about her past or where she comes from. Soon, it won't be necessary anymore."

"Actually, where is she?" Yara's voice sounded.

"No idea, I'll go take a look."

Shit! On my toes, I ran back to the door of my bedroom, so that it looked like I just came out of it when Ohredos excited the kitchen. I smiled at him while I signed him to be quiet, as if Juvia was still asleep. He followed me back into the kitchen, so I could fill the glass again and we could talk out loud.

"Is everything alright Ilse?" Yara asked, looking worried. I tried to hide how dubious I was after eavesdropping their conversation, and acted like everything was just fine.

"Yeah, I'm sorry that I yelled at you guys, I think I couldn't control myself then. But I'm fine now." I showed them the glass. "I got a glass of water for Juvia, but I drank it myself, so I needed to refill it for her." Yara looked relieved, Ohredos was already occupied with something else: I fly trying to exit the kitchen through the glass in the window. I put my hand in my pocket to look nonchalant, but froze when I felt what was inside of it."I'm going to take the water back to Juvia. How long until we leave?" Ohredos looked at the clock above the cupboards.

"We'll leave within half an hour. Make sure you've packed all your stuff, I'm not in the mood to wait." He gave a piercing gaze at Yara. "Especially you, Yara. You always need to do countless of things in the last minute." Yara giggled. I had the urge to puke at this look-at-our-cute-cliche-family act, which they obviously only performed for me. If Yara would have done everything at the last moment, I would still be in Fairy Tail and Juvia would still be Juvia, without ink in her body.

Juvia! I made a fist around the object in my pocket and exited the kitchen.

"Hey Juvia, I'm back." I said while entering the room, and gave the water to her, which she drank greedy. Like Droy did with his food. I sat down at the end of the bed and waited til she was done. Juvia's eyes became really wide as I gave her what was inside my pocket all this time.

It was the miniature picture of Gray.

While she overloaded me with thank you's and pressed the picture against her heart I remembered what effort it had taken to get that thing for her.

Just before I had to kidnap Juvia, I went to Fairy hills to get that picture, which I really wanted to surprise her with. Everything went pretty smooth. I sneaked in without being seen, took the picture and just exited Juvia's apartment when I bumped into Erza.

"Ilse? What are you doing here?" she asked while she looked a little distrustful. I faked a smile.

"Oh, I just wanted to clean Juvia's apartment, because Poluchka wants that she recovers here. Probably because the guild is always really noisy." The lie slid off my tongue. Why didn't I just tell her that I came to get the picture? No, maybe she would want to come with me to deliver it to her, since she didn't trust me for 100%. And then my chance of kidnapping Juvia was gone. Erza looked over my shoulder, at the room behind me, which was a mess of course.

"You wanted to clean her apartment? Well, it didn't really help, did it?" she stated. I giggled nervously and responded:

"No, you're right. I was looking for cleaning tools like a vacuum cleaning lacrima to clean her house really thoroughly." Erza clapped her hands.

"Perfect! I'll help you, than we can clean it the best. We shall be the best cleaners in the world!" She requipped into a maids outfit. I recoiled a bit.

"Erza, no need to become so competitive. But let's get to work!" I had no choice anymore now. _Me again, I lie for one time and I get this_!

For the next two hours, Erza and I were working really hard to clean Juvia's apartment, which was really dusty. And to think that all this was just for that stupid photo. No, not stupid. Juvia was happy and that was worth it.

"Ilse-san, how come you know mister Ohredos and miss Yara?" Juvia asked, while she tried to sit up straight. I quickly took a pillow to support her back. She continued talking: "Juvia knows that they dropped you in that alley without any memory of them, so you could join Fairy Tail and collect magic energy. But you knew them before that too." She played with Gray's picture, but looked me in the eyes. I pulled up my legs and crossed them.

"Yes, that's right." I told her the whole story about how Yara and Ohredos had found me and how I had learned ink magic. Juvia looked thoughtful.

"It had to be difficult for you to have amnesia, and it must be nice when there are people who take care of you, Juvia understands that. But there's something about the way they act when you're close. Juvia can hear it in the way Yara and Ohredos talk to you. As if they are actors."

I shrugged. Auch, it still hurt a little. All movements with my pierced shoulder were fine, but shrugging? Grrr. "Maybe it's only because they want me to feel at ease when I'm with them, they are my foster parents after all."

What the hell? Was I defending them? They did act weird, look at the conversation I eavesdropped in the kitchen! "Maybe you're right Juvia, but they are right about Zeref's demon too. So I think we can trust them." I didn't want to quit the plan and let the demon destroy the city, only because Yara and Ohredos were acting a little strange.

Someone knocked on the door. "Ilse? We have to leave. Can you carry my book-suitcase? Ohredos can carry Juvia." Yara's voice sounded through the door. One way or another, I just didn't like the idea of Ohredos carrying Juvia, and judging by her expression, Juvia felt that way too.

"No, I'll carry Juvia myself, Ohredos is perfect for your books!" I yelled back while I sank down on my knees next to the bed, so Juvia could climb on my back. She felt a little better, because she could sit up straight without any problems now. It was a shame it wouldn't last long.

I rose from the ground and sighed in relief. Carrying someone on your back is way lighter than on your shoulders. I entered the hallway. Yara and Ohredos were already waiting for me. Yara had a bag that probably contained clothes, blankets and food, and Ohredos had this huge suitcase which contained all of the books Yara would need to research demons and time editing.

Ohredos said nothing and just walked outside, but Yara wanted to stroke my hair with her hand. Before she could do that, I leaned backwards, so she missed. She frowned for a moment, but remained silent and walked outside too. I joined her

It was a two hour walk to the hideout, and we were all silent during the journey. While walking I wondered how my (ex) friends from Fairy Tail were doing. Natsu and the others should have been found by now, so it probably wouldn't take long before they started searching for us. Yara had used an odor-eating lacrima so we couldn't be tracked by one of the dragon slayers in the guild, but I was still a little worried. Natsu nose is very skilled, and our new place wasn't that far from the city.

After a two and a half hour long walk we arrived at our hideout. It was a simple little building covered in moss and other creations of mother nature. Inside there were still some broken chairs and tables, and the sphere of course, which stood in the middle. Ohredos walked towards a bookcase he had created with his stone molding magic. I put Juvia in the one chair that wasn't broken and opened the bag Yara had brought with her to get a blanket. After I made a bed for her, she fell asleep again. She really trusted us. I walked towards Yara.

"So... What's the plan?" I asked while I helped her sort out her books.

"We have to make a few preparations. First we need to anesthetize Juvia, which will take 12 hours. The spell I'm using takes a lot of time to apply itself to the entire body. Then we have to place her gently inside the sphere, and prepare her body for the fusion with my soul." She stopped re-arranging her books and looked me in they eyes. "And then there is the worst part."

"What? What do we have to do?" I asked, on guard.

"We have to get the lacrima out of your body."

_Well, crap._

**Oof! That was a lot of information. Again. I'm sorry for the lack of action. Maybe there will be some in the next chapter, I'm not sure yet.**

**I have a question for you guys: should I start playing with Pov's? I would love to write a chapter on how the guild feels and thinks right now. **

**I think the next chapter would be great for a different pov. But I'd love to hear what you guys think!**

**Thanks for reading my fic! If you have anything on your mind, write a review. I don't mind bad critics at all (I don't mind good critics too XD)They help me out with my English. I really have the feeling I'm improving.**

**See ya!**

**-Ink**


	7. What we saw: Erza and Lucy

**Hey Guys!**

**I'm sooo sorry for being late! I had so much going on! First I was ill, and I just couldn't bring up the energy to write. Then I had a big Latin test, and then I had work really hard on my Attack on Titan costume for a festival in NL. So just didn't have time. But today, I worked very hard to make this chapter still extra long and make things even. It's holiday here now, so I'll have a lot of time to write the coming two weeks.**

**This chapter is a special one, where I'm going to be switching between Erza's and Lucy's POV's. It will be kind of a filler, but I felt like doing something different for once. Hope you all enjoy!**

**-Ink**

Lucy: Meeting Ilse

"Lucy! Can I talk to you for a moment?" Master Makarov waved at me from the bar. _Oh god, please don't tell me that he wants me to stop Natsu and Gray from fighting. Erza, come back soon. _I walked towards him.

"What did they do this time?" I asked, on guard. You never knew with those two. The master laughed.

"No, no. This isn't about the two brats. No, I have a favor to ask you." I leaned at the bar while he continued. "A few moments ago, I caught a girl staring at the guild from the entrance. She was looking for help, so I brought her inside. When I asked her, she told me what was wrong: she appears to have amnesia."

I looked around. "Where is she now?" I asked.

"She had to use the bathroom, I think she'll be here in a sec." He thought for a second. "Now that I think about it, she doesn't have a place to stay yet. Hmmm... Maybe she can sleep over at Fairy Hills for a few days until she knows where she lives, but we don't know how long it will take before her memory is back." I laughed.

"It could take months before her amnesia is gone, and the rent of Fairy Hills is even higher than my house." Two thoughts in my brain connected and you could almost see the light bulb above my head. "I know! She can stay with me! I have a hard time paying the rent, so maybe she can help me out!" Makarov nodded in agreement.

"I think that's a very good idea, maybe she can even join the guild sometime." I smiled, it would be fun to have a new member in the guild. But that meant...

"Is she a wizard? What kind of magic does she have?" I asked, while readjusting my left pigtail, which hung loose. The old man shrugged.

"I don't know, we didn't talk about magic. Maybe you can ask her." He looked up. "Speaking of the devil, there she is!" I followed his gaze.

A girl shyly approached us. She wore an orange top with a red skirt, which matched beautifully with her dark skin. Her hair was pushed back by an light-orange scarf, and she had twined the ends of the scarf together in some sort of braid on her right shoulder. She was a little shorter than me, but I think she was about the same age. She had the same chocolate-brow eyes as me, but there was a bit of green in hers too. She smiled kindly at me.

"There you are, Ilse!" Master said. He pointed at me. "This is Lucy. She offered that you can stay with her until your memory is back. She was looking for a roommate anyway. She needs someone to share her rent with."

She kept smiling until he reached the 'rent' part, when she started looking worried. "But I don't even have a job! How am I supposed to help pay her rent?" She put one hand on her hip. _So much for being shy... _But I could understand her problem.

"Why not work here at Fairy Tail as a waitress?" I said, I didn't want to be too pushy by saying she could join the guild to go on jobs. She already looked a little stressed because of all the information. I continued: "We are always short on them because they all leave. Most of the time because they think everyone is crazy." _Hmm, I used 'because' two times, I could have used a synonym there. You need to work on your language Lucy. _Ilse stared at me.

"Actually, I think that too. No offense of course. But everyone is fighting the whole time." she said. I couldn't help but grin, remembering my first day at Fairy Tail, meeting Gray, Cana, Elfman and the rest. Thinking back at how stupid Gray was, asking a lady for underwear, I understood how Ilse felt right now.

"Wait and see when Erza comes back from her job. You'll see how easy it is to get them quiet." Only thinking about Erza beating up Natsu and Gray made me smile really bright. _Aaahhh, good memories._ I took her hand. Although she didn't agree to stay with me yet, I still wanted to show her my apartment. Maybe that could help her deciding. "Come on! I'll show you our apartment!"

I started dragging her through the crowd. A piece of wood, probably from a table or a chair, nearly hit my head, but I made no move to dodge it. I turned around to face Ilse while walking backwards and explained: "They'll watch out where they aim." I snickered. "You don't want Erza to be mad at you, but lately they are scared of me too." I was only hoping that keeping Ilse close to me would prevent her from being hit, but maybe I wasn't scary enough. She got hit in the back by a chair. I looked towards the person who threw it, which was Natsu. _I'll get you for that Natsu, wait and see... _I gritted my teeth, but kept smiling for Ilse.

Once we were outside, I told Ilse all about the others, so she would know who they were and didn't have to feel awkward around them when she met them. I felt my face heating up a little when I talked about Natsu always breaking into the apartment. _No, bad Lucy. Stop messing with me, stupid brain!_ Then I remembered something: I still didn't know about her magic. So I asked her.

She looked at me like with a weird gaze. "What do you mean?" I explained her what magic I, Natsu and Gray used, to give her a few examples. But it didn't clear up anything. "Listen, magic doesn't exist. Are you sure you are alright?" she asked me, while stabilizing herself by leaning against a house. _What the heck? How couldn't she know about magic? Did that mean that she came here though an anima? _

"Of course magic does exist. And I feel fine. I should be asking you that question, you look really pale." Suddenly her eyes widened. "Ilse, magic has always existed. Around the entire world. If you don't know anything about it, you must be from somewhere else. Are you from Edolas?" I asked her.

"Edolas? What's Edolas?" She started collapsing. I was able to catch her before her head hit the ground and propped her against the wall. _She had to be suffering from a concussion if she doesn't know what magic or Edolas is. I have to get help._ I told her to stay were she was, and ran off to the guild.

"It's Ilse! She just collapsed!" I yelled as I ran into the guild. Makarov jumped off the bar and beckoned Gray to follow him. He joined me at the entrance and I explained what had happened: "I asked Ilse what kind of magic she used, but she denied that magic existed at all! Then she just collapsed and I ran here to get help!" I panted, barely able to speak properly. "We have to go get her, but I can't carry her!"

"Gray will carry her, just lead us to were she is." Makarov said, his voice trying to calm me down. Due to his super-hearing, Natsu came running to us from the other side of the guild and yelled:

"If Ice-Princess is going, I'm going too." My eye twitched at his words. I pushed him back.

"No you helped enough already. I'm sure that chair you hit her with definitely made her memory come back." I scowled. I couldn't believe he only wanted to come with us because his rival was coming too. _Uuugh! _

"But Luce..." he pouted.

"No, just go back to arguing with Gajeel already." I groaned. I knew I was being too harsh on him, but Ilse was more important right now. I exited the guild with Makarov and Gray following me, leaving the salmon-haired boy behind.

Erza: The fight

I was furious. They had hurt one of my comrades and didn't even have the decency to speak to us. I would make sure that they were going to get what they asked for: revenge. I let out a scream and attacked the kidnappers.

I ended op attacking myself, or to be more specific: my stone copy. Even though I had so much armours to choose from, none really worked against the puppet. First, using my Thunder Empress armour, I tried to break the duplica while wielding my lightning, which had no effect. Instead, it ran towards me for a close-range battle. I was able to dodge most of the stone punches and kicks, but it succeeded to hit my tibia with its knee. I gritted my teeth and hobbled a few steps backwards, taking the time to look around for a moment. _What? Why are the others able to break them so easily while I'm having such a struggle?_

I concluded that the puppets also copied our abilities. My copy didn't wield swords or anything, but it's 'skin' was as hard as my armour. Happy caught my eye, flying around while yelling insults to the stone Happy. Happy's copy was able to fly too, so my deduction was correct. Although it didn't have wings, like the blue exceed.

_Okay, time to try something different._ I requipped into my Japanese cloth, so I could move more freely. _And maybe it will copy this too... So that I'm able to break it now. _The puppet fell apart, but after a few seconds a new one rose up from the ground. I jumped forward and sliced one of my blades trough its waist. This time, it worked. I waited a few seconds, and almost wanted to smirk at my little victory when a new one appeared. The fight continued.

After a few minutes, I almost fell to the ground. This was a really tough battle, since I was kind of fighting myself. It reminded me about my battle against my counterpart in Edolas, Erza Knightwalker. I groaned. The pain in my leg was bad, but not as bad as the headache that stupid piece of stone gave me when it hit my head. Panting heavily, I stumbled on my feet. The puppet came running towards me to strike the final blow when... it suddenly froze.

"Ilse!" I heard Lucy scream, and I looked the ink-wizards way. She laid on the ground, her left shoulder bleeding badly, but I something else too: the man that had summoned these stone duplicas got distracted by her for some reason. Which meant that it was easy to beat him now. I knew it would be a bit cowardly to strike him while he was distracted, but Juvia and Ilse were in danger and every second counted.

"Requip: Thunder Empress Armour!" I took down the copy with one strike and ran off to Lucy, who's arm was grabbed by the puppet. And since all the all the duplicas were frozen, she was stuck. Natsu went to take out the man, who was now confused after seeing that all of his 'soldiers' were beaten. After that we ran off to get Ilse. I was so relieved when I saw that she already got Juvia out of the sphere and into safety (In Gray's arms, she would go crazy if she were conscious right now) . It appeared that she had been able to tie the woman up. Seeing how severe her wound was, I was really proud of her that she had beaten her opponent.

"The man?" she asked me, struggling to keep standing straight.

"Unconscious." I answered. I didn't like the fact that I was still panting. _I have a lot of training to do when all this is done. _Ilse collapsed again. I wanted to jump forward and catch her, but Lucy caught her before I had even reached her.

"Ilse, what happened? I saw how the lance hit you, but then the stone puppet was in the way." she said, looking worried. But Ilse only groaned. I looked around: there was a blood trail from here to the place were Ilse's battle with the woman presumably found place. She had lost a lot of blood.

"Come on, let's get out of here. We need to bring Juvia and Ilse to the infirmary." I headed towards the exit of the cave, and the rest followed me.

Lucy: in the train after Ilse's first job

"I'm going to throw up."

"Shut up Flame Brain, you're making me sick."

"Did you say something, Ice Pants?"

"Quiet you two! I want to enjoy my cake in peace."

It was an everyday train ride.

Except for the fact that we had another member on the team, who looked very excited, but a little shy too. Ilse was playing with her pencils, while she watched as the different landscapes came by. I could guess that she was thinking about the job, at least I was. I chuckled when I thought about the look on Natsu's face when he found out that all of the bandits were already defeated before he had done anything.

"Lucy?" Ilse interrupted my thoughts. I smiled at the shy tone of her voice.

"Yes, Ilse?" She looked at her shoes, feeling very uneasy. Which was new for me, because she was an open person.

"Y-you think I can get into Fairy Tail now? You know... we completed this job, and I'm able to use magic now... so that makes me a wizard right?" Her face was bright red.

"Of course you can become a member now, no need to be shy about it. Your first job was a success right?"

"Well, I didn't really do much. I only took out two guys, and it took me way longer than you guys." She pointed at Gray and Erza, her voice becoming a little more stronger. "But I still think I can improve so much more, so there a whole lot to do coming months." Setting her cake aside, Erza nodded.

"Yes. I indeed think you need to improve, since it would be good if you were at the same level as us, 'cause then we could do some really lucrative jobs. This job wasn't worth a lot of money... How much was it again?" I peeked at the request paper.

"It was 150.000 jewel, so split up it's 25.000 each." I replied while I put the paper in my purse again. I calculated for a second... "Guys, I have an idea!" I yelled as I jumped up from my seat. "Ilse and I have some extra money left this month, so why don't you all come over? Let's throw a party to celebrate Ilse's membership in Fairy Tail!" Everyone cheered at my brilliant plan, even Natsu smiled for a moment. But then he fell in his chair again.

"I'm seriously going to throw up..."

"Not on my shoes Flame Brain!"

"Natsu, Lucy is too fat. I'm being squeezed between her and you."

"Shut up you stupid cat!"

Erza: At Juvia's apartment

I was making a grocery list in my head:

_Okay, I need to buy strawberries for the cake I'm going to bake for Juvia. Hmmmm... I suppose she isn't that hungry yet. I mean, every ill person isn't that hungry. So I'll give her a quarter of the cake, and then I'll take the rest myself. Alright, what else... O yeah, eggs, flour and milk. Errr... I don't feel like cooking supper tonight, I'll be busy enough with that cake. Maybe I'll go to Lucy, I'm sure she won't mind. I still need to do something about her taste for underwear... ... ..._

_What is Ilse doing in Juvia's room?_

While thinking about my groceries, I walked into Ilse, who was coming out of Juvia's apartment. This was a little suspicious, since she wouldn't have any business there, at least none that I knew about.

"Ilse? What are you doing here?" I asked her, not really able to hide the distrust in my voice. But I didn't think she heard it, since she smiled at me.

"Oh, I just wanted to clean Juvia's apartment, because Poluchka wants that she recovers here." She said, smiling so bright that it almost looked a little... fake? . "Probably because the guild is always really noisy." She added. Well, her story did sound like something Poluchka would say, so it could be true. But after looking at the room behind her, which was a total mess, her story was kind of dumb. I mean: who would tell someone you went to clean a place when the actual place is still a mess. _I wonder why she would lie though..._

"You wanted to clean her apartment?" I repeated. "Well, it didn't really help, did it?" The sarcasm in my voice was really subtle, something I was a little proud of. Ilse giggled like a schoolgirl.

"No, you're right. I was looking for cleaning tools like a vacuum cleaning lacrima to clean her house really thoroughly." She said.

Amazing! With a vacuum lacrima, she could clean Juvia's apartment very good. That would make our comrade and Poluchka very proud and happy. And this would be a fine exercise to learn household tricks. Wait, what if there was a cleaning contest between all the guilds, and we would win because we exercised this much? We would become an unbeatable guild, and no one would be able to hurt Fairy Tail anymore! That would solve every future problem!

"Perfect!" I exclaimed. "I'll help you, than we can clean it the best. We shall be the best cleaners in the world!" While clapping my hands together, I requipped into my maids outfit, which I kept for opportunities like these, although it seemed to scare Ilse a bit off.

"Erza, no need to become so competitive." She said, gesturing me to calm down. Then she got a more determined look on her face. "But let's get to work!" She said, and the rest of the day we cleaned the apartment.

Lucy: After bringing Ilse to the infirmary

After I had left Ilse in Poluchka's care, I went to search for Natsu. I wanted to apologize to him for being so rude, while he only wanted to help. When I entered the main hall, I looked around the for my pink-haired team-mate. No Natsu. The pool? Not Natsu. The bar? No Natsu. I did find Erza talking to Cana at the bar though, so asked them if they had seen him.

"No, I didn't see him Lucy. Do I need to punish him for being stupid again?" Erza asked, requipping one of her swords. I sweatdropped.

"No no, nothing like that. I just wanted to apologize to him for being a little mean." I said, trying to calm her down. She nodded and made her sword disappear.

"I *hiccup* think I saw him walking out of the guild after you had left. You must have been really stupid, since he looked kind of sad and pissed." Cana said, no hiccuped as she paused gulping down the beer in her barrel. I thanked the both of them and walked outside.

I first wanted to go to Natsu's place, but that would be kind of pointless. He was only there to eat and sleep (as soon as I kicked him out of my place). He would presumably be at my apartment, stealing food from my fridge. I chuckled at the idea. He could be really annoying doing that, and most of the times I would become very angry about it, but now it only cheered me up a little. A little.

"Natsu?" I yelled as I entered my house. No response. _What? Why wasn't he here?_ I searched everywhere, I even looked in my bed, but he wasn't here. That was new for me. But, when I thought about it, why would he be here when he was angry at me? It was kind of selfish of me to assume that he was here. _Okay, if I were Natsu and I was angry at a friend of mine who I didn't wan't to see right now, where would I go? ... ... ... I wouldn't want to go to my own place, since I would get found really easy. Maybe.. _The park. I guessed that he would be at the park, probably kicking some trees.

I was right, but instead of kicking the tree, he was just leaning against one, his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping though, he would snore if he did. I slowly approached him.

"Hey, Natsu. I thought you would still be upset, so I'm here to say sorry." I said. _Man, I sounded so dump right now._ He let out a soft "Meehh", and I sat down beside him. I wanted to know what he was thinking though, so I asked him. "Are you still upset, Natsu? I'm truly sorry for treating you like that." I said, trying to get him to face me and answer my question. Another "Meehh" was all I got. "Natsu, can you at least tell me if you're still mad at me?" My voice was louder now.

"Meehh."

"Natsu!"

"Waaa!" He jumped up, startled. But he relaxed when he saw it was me. "Lucy? What are you doing here all of a sudden." _Didn't he hear me asking? ... ... ..._

_Oh, so he WAS sleeping... ... What a jerk!_

"Natsu, why the hell were you sleeping in the middle of the park? You could've been robbed or anything!" I said, rising on my feet too.

"I dunno, I just fell asleep. It's not something I can control ya know." he pouted.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Well, at least try too. It's not safe to sleep out in the open okay? I was worried!" I half-shouted the last part. He looked at me questioningly.

"Why would you be worried?" he asked.

"Because... I don't know." I screamed, but then tried to calm down. No need to be so loud. "I came here to apologize." I continued.

"For what?" he asked again, already not really interested anymore. Didn't he remember what I said to him in the guild?

"For being mean to you when you wanted to join us to go get Ilse."

"Who's Ilse?" I ignored that question, I just wanted an answer.

"I just wanted to know if you were still upset about it."

"About wha... ooooohhhhh that. Why would I be upset about it, you kinda were right." I giggled, feeling a whole lot better now.

"You really aren't upse... oh well. Anyway, good to here everything is fine again."

"Yeah..." he said, while scratching the back of his neck.

.

.

.

"But seriously, who is Ilse?"

I had a lot to explain.

**So how was that? It was really fun to write from others perspectives for once. I hope there all in character, especially Erza. She is really hard to write for. Next chapter will be a normal one again.**

**Thanks for all the support! I love getting critics from you guys!**

**If you have anything on your mind, please leave a review! And please tell me what you think about me using different POV's.**

**Question: Where would you place your guild mark and in what colour? I would place it on the same place as Ilse (I kind of based her on me ^-^) And it would be mint-green.**

**That's all for now. See ya!**

**-Ink**


	8. Wounds: mental and physical

**Woohoo! Done, just one day before my normal update day! It is actually only fair, since I was really late last time. Writing was getting tougher while writing this chapter, since I was starting to doubt my own plot. But I know how it's going to fold out now, just wait and see. Mwuhahahahaha!**

**Enjoy reading!**

**-Ink**

"Wait!" I pushed Ohredos' hand away again. "Am I going to notice anything of it? And how long will it take? And you'll be careful right? And do I nee..."

"Ilse!" Yara interrupted me, looking a little annoyed as she turned a page of her manual. But she looked me straight in the eyes. "Everything's going to be fine. You're not going to notice a thing. Just go to sleep."

"Okay... Alright." I lay back down on the table and finally accepted the anesthesia Ohredos had tried to give me after I had stopped him three times. While looking the other way, I felt how the syringe sank into my arm, and felt it going numb almost immediately. I closed my eyes and let the sleepiness consume me.

My mission was very simple: go to Fairy Tail, become a member and walk around for some time to let the lacrima absorb the magic energy of the guild. And to (re-)kidnap Juvia of course. But they didn't say that an operation was involved. That was that one little detail they forgot to mention to me right? Oh well, if the only thing I had to do was to sleep, then it didn't really matter right? But the idea of an operation was just so scary.

The operation first wasn't necessary, but Ohredos discovered that the lacrima had grown a little and could become a health hazard for me, so they had to remove it. Ohredos had told me that the removal would leave a large scar across my back, which I didn't really care about, as long as my shirt covered it. I had borrowed Lucy's clothes from time to time, but now I was back to wearing my usual orange outfit that suited me best.

I didn't notice anything of the operation in my unconscious state, but I did dream... I was back in my bedroom again, with the book in my hand. While studying the outside of the book, I wondered if I would have a vision again if I opened it. But I didn't really feel like opening it this time, since I knew everything I needed to know right now. Suddenly, my body started moving by itself. _Oh, it's this kind of a dream. How annoying._ I watched as my body walked out of my room, downstairs and into the kitchen. It opened the fridge and took out the yogurt, took a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with the food. It was just an everyday dream, but it turned into a nightmare: While I took a spoon from one of the drawers, someone behind me took a knife from it... and stabbed me.

It's weird that, when you get stabbed, you only feel the pain if you realize you got hurt. First there is confusion, then the realization, and then the intense pain that makes you collapse. I held one hand onto the wound in my gut, and used the other to try to get up and flee from my attacker, but I was far too weak. Not that it mattered much, since the person was long gone, and I was left alone to bleed to death. While my vision blurred and I slowly started losing my consciousness, I saw someone running into the kitchen, screaming my name. I first thought that it was my attacker, but this... woman didn't attack me at all. Instead, she pulled me onto her lap and stroked my hair with her hand. Her tears fell from her cheeks on my forehead as she was whispering things I couldn't understand. Though I could hear one thing:

"Please don't leave me alone, Ilse. Please don't leave me alone. Pl..se d..'t ...ve me .lo.. ... ..."

"Gah!" I shrieked, as I jolted awake. Yara who was reading a book next to my bed, looked up and walked towards me. For a moment, we looked at each other, and then I started crying. I hugged my legs and let all my anger, fear and confusion flow as I yelled and coughed and made all those noises one makes when crying. After a few minutes, I felt Yara sitting next to me on the table and hugging me. This was the first time I let her. When she tried to hug me, I would always push her away, not wanting to look weak. But right now it felt good to have someone to comfort me. We kept sitting like this for at least ten minutes, until I only sniffed every once in a while. When I was silent, Yara broke the hug.

"Are you okay now?" Her voice was so soothing, it almost made me cry again, but I was able to contain my tears.

"Y-yes, I think I am. Thanks." I whispered. "I was having a bad dream, that's all." She smiled kindly at me, which made me want to snuggle into her shoulder more. While leaning against her shoulder, I felt how she stroke my hair, like the woman in my dream did. This was the first time I let her comfort me, let her whisper soothing words to calm me down. And I felt... protected. There was no other way to put it.

"You want to talk about it? It helps you know." I hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. I told Yara how the dream started and how I got stabbed. I told her how scared I was, and how weird it was to hear a stranger tell you not to leave her alone. When I was done talking, Yara looked thoughtful.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, while I got up from the table. She stirred when I interrupted her thoughts.

"Nothing, I was just wondering if the stabbing has something to do with the operation."

"Why?"

"Lift you shirt, Ilse."

I did as she asked, and swallowed when I saw the huge scar on my belly. "I thought I would get a scar on my back." I said, almost emotionless. Why was the scar there?

"We first wanted to remove the lacrima from your back, but somehow it didn't work, so we had to do it through your belly. Maybe that's why you dreamed you got stabbed there." She said, while patting my shoulder.

"Well, at least my shirt covers it, so no need to be sad or angry about it." I said, being a little happier for some reason. Maybe because I knew why I had dreamed so awfully. I tucked my shirt down and walked away from the operation table, to where Juvia was. By the looks on her face, she was having a serious conversation with Ohredos. When they saw I was awake again, they stopped talking. I sat down next to Juvia. "Hey Juvia, how are you feeling?"

"Juvia is feeling fine, maybe a bit drowsy. Mister Ohredos has told Juvia that she will be entirely numbed within two hours, when the spell fully works, so she and mister Ohredos were going through the plans one last time." She replied, smiling bravely. But it was clear that she was feeling very tired already. Not wanting to make her use up all of her energy, I pushed her down into lying position. She yawned, and looked at me with those big blue eyes of hers, who always reminded me of a lake. "Juvia thinks that it wont take two hours before she is sleeping, she's simply too tired." I giggled.

"It's okay Juvia, go to sleep. By the time you wake up, everything will be fine again." She was immediately gone. I readjusted her blanket and leaned against the wall of the building, my legs crossed, to keep watch over her. It was horrible to even think that she had to go through so much for the saving of Magnolia. Ohredos rose to his feet and walked off to Yara, probably to discuss the project. While listening to his footsteps, I ran my finger through Juvia's blue hair, still wondering how she got this extraordinary hair color. Well, when you wonder about her hair color, you can also wonder about Natsu's, Wendy's, and Levy's of course...

Some time later, Ohredos came walking back and gestured me to get up and come with him. I followed him to the sphere, where Yara was already standing, preparing it for Juvia. The ball was blue, with dark ink clouds floating around in it. Yara was standing behind it, reading a book and mumbling to herself. She was probably practicing the spell she had to recite for preparing Juvia's body. When she saw me, she walked around the sphere and gave me a quick hug, which I happily answered. Ohredos rose an eyebrow at the sudden change of chemistry between us, but said nothing. "So, what's next? I asked, almost happily. Which made me really ashamed. How could I be happy when Juvia had to go into this... thing again.

"Well, I thought it would be nice to have dinner before we begin with the preparations." Yara replied, putting her book away. "Juvia can still be woken, and it will be good if she eats something before... errr..." She scratched the back of her neck. "Before we begin."

I looked around. "I know we have food, but wouldn't it be nice if we made a real dish by cooking the food?" Pausing for a moment, I then added. "I think we owe Juvia at least a good meal." Ohredos grunted.

"Okay, but you will be the cook." He started dividing the tasks. "Yara, why don't you get the firewood? I'll collect some water and herbs." _Wait, since when does he know stuff about edible plants? Well, he has a lot of dirt on his cape and trousers. Maybe he likes gardening after all. _"Ilse, while we're gone, why don't you try to wake up the water mage?"

"Sure." We split up, each with our own things to do. While walking back to my blue haired friend, I thought about the way Ohredos reacted on my and Yara's hug. Wasn't he my foster parent? Shouldn't he find it only normal that me and my 'mother' were hugging? Shouldn't he be happy that I finally had accepted her? There was something fishy about that... Juvia!

She was heaving a nightmare, it was clearly visible on her face. Frowning, sweating and clutching her blanket, she looked like she was going though hell. "Juvia? Hey... wake up." I tried, shaking her shoulder lightly. It didn't help: instead, tears started to run down her cheeks. "Juvia, come on! Wake up!." I now loudly said. She started biting her lip. "Juvia!"

"Aaaaaaaah!" She screamed, instantly stretching her arms and giving me a punch in the face. Her fear quickly turned into confusion, and then back to fear, which meant she started hyperventilating.

"Shhh, shhh, shhh ,shhh Juvia. It's not real. It was just a dream." I whispered, trying to calm her down. It took a few deep breaths before she was a little calmer, whereupon she started crying again, letting out loud sobs. I hesitated for a second, but then pulled her into a tight hug, letting her cry onto my shoulder and patting her on the back. Eventually, she calmed down to the point where she could speak.

"Juv... Juvia is sorry for being such a crybaby... she just dreamed so..." She almost burst out in tears again when she tried to describe her dream.

"Hey, Juvia? Just take a deep breath okay? I know it's hard to talk about a bad dream, but it really helps when you talk about it." She nodded and took my advice to breathe, but when she tried to speak again, her voice faltered.

"Juvia just can't say what she saw. Maybe she'll tell you later." she sniffed.

"Okay, but don't wait too long, otherwise the bad feelings will bottle up inside of you." I told her, stroking her hair like Yara did when I woke up. _Yara... Bad dream... Maybe it's time for me to take my own advice. _"Hey Juvia? How about I start with telling you my bad dream during the operation?" While wiping her nose, she nodded.

"Okay, so I was in this house, and I went down to eat yogurt when I..." I stopped and looked at her. "Hey, what's so funny? It was a real nightmare!" I pouted while she was chuckling at how boring the first part of dream sounded. But her expression soon changed when I told her how I got stabbed and how the strange woman had tried to comfort me while I was loosing consciousness. When I was done, she took my hands and gave them an encouraging squeeze.

"That must've been horrible for you, Ilse. Juvia feels really sorry for you." I shrugged.

"It actually feels much better now that I've told someone about it." I whispered. Juvia withdrew her hands and made them into fists.

"Juvia thinks she's able to tell you what she saw in her dream." A small tear appeared in her right eye, but she bravely wiped it away. "J-Juvia was in the cave under the church, but instead of in the sphere, she stood next to it and in the sphere was Gray-sama and Juvia had to watch him being hurt and she couldn't do anything and she could only scream his name and he couldn't even hear her and..." She was speaking faster and faster, and in the end she started hyperventilating again.

"Juvia, calm down, okay? It's over now. Everything is fine. Gray is fine, and you're going to be fine too. Just, take it slow." I hold her shoulder and shook her lightly to get her back to reality, out of her imaginations of her beloved being hurt.

"Aaah-fuuuuuu Aaaah-fuuuu" She wheezed.

"Juvia! Come on! Calm down!" I started to panic a little. I couldn't get her to breathe normally. Suddenly, a thought popped up in my head. _A plastic bag, I need a plastic bag. _"Ohredos! A plastic bag! I need a plastic bag!" He was just coming back from getting his herbs.

"What the hell is plastic!?" he shouted back as he came running towards us.

"Or a paper bag, whatever! Anything where she can breathe into." I ran towards where Yara had stored our food. Luckily, Yara had bought some apples on the market, which were stored inside a perfect paper bag. I shook out the apples and ran back to Juvia, putting it over her nose and mouth.

"Aaaah-fuuuu Aaaaah-fuuuu" The bag expanded and deflated. "Aaah-fuuuu Aaah-fuuuu.. Aaaaaah-fuuuuuu..." Finally, her breathing was going slower, and I could remove my new best friend: mister The Paper Apple Bag. Thank god Yara had been a genius to buy apples.

"Juvia, are you all right?" I softly asked, patting her back.

"Yes, thank you." she whispered. Ohredos looked at me with wide eyes.

"How did you know what to do?" he asked, dumbfounded. I giggled out of nervousness.

"No idea... I just did." I hold up the bag. "Would you be so kind to put the apples back?" He nodded and walked away with the bag in his hands. When he was gone, I turned my attention back to the water mage, who was softly sobbing.

"Juvia, I'm so sorry for making you talk about it. Please forgive me." I took one of her fists and started to massage it until she relaxed a little.

"Juvia forgives you. You couldn't know that this would happen, even Juvia didn't know herself." She whispered. I gave her a small hug, and just kept sitting next to her and massaging her hands, waiting for Yara to return with the firewood, so I could make supper to cheer everyone up again.

.

.

.

Yara didn't return. It was already dark, and Ohredos had gone out himself to get firewood, so we could at least make a little fire to keep warm. I had given Juvia some apples, since she had to eat something before the anesthesia had numbed her completely. Now she was fast asleep, hopefully without having bad dreams. While sitting next to fire and poking in it with a stick, me and Ohredos discussed what to do. We had to search for Yara, but we couldn't leave Juvia. And Ohredos didn't wan't me to guard her alone, since there was always a slight chance of being discovered. Hours went by, where I was having a déjà vu of the time in the guild, when all the search parties took so long to look for Juvia. Only this time, I didn't wan't to sleep to kill time. This time, there were no search parties to wait for to report, but we had to wait for the person herself, not being able to do anything.

_What could've happened that she isn't here yet? It could be that she got discovered by Fairy Tail somehow, and that she's now back in Magnolia, being questioned. It could also be that she's lost and that she..._

Loud groaning could be heard from the bushes. Ohredos jumped up and summoned a stone soldier. With the puppet beside him, he walked towards the bushes to find out what was making that horrible sound. Only to find... Yara.

"Yara, what the hell happened!" he shouted as he dragged a very badly wounded woman to the fire. I gasped: She had a huge wound in her side, probably made by the claw of some animal. Ohredos immediately started bandaging her side, while I hold her hand.

"G-got attacked by wolves. Was surprised. Reacted *Urgh!* too slow." She groaned while Ohredos lifted her for a moment so he could look at the damage done to her back. When she was patched up, he made a bed for her next to the fire and sat down beside her.

"Yara, what now? You can't merge with the water mage like this. Heck, you can't even recite the spell!" he said while holding his head.

"No, I can't. Oh, why now of all times!" She whispered while she started chewing on the inside of her mouth, which she always did when she was nervous or stressed.

We were all quiet for a while. All lost in our own thoughts. When the silence was broken, it was me who said:

"Errr, maybe I can take over your task?"

**Okay, a few notes on future update delays:**

**I'm going to have a few issues with internet connection from coming Sunday till somewhere around Wednesday, so writing will go very slow then. I kind of get all my inspiration from the marvelous internet. XD**

**I'll try and get as much as possible done coming days, but the writing goes best at the end of the deadline (Friday) so sorry if the next chapter will be later then usual. No worries though! Now I know how I'm going to continue the story, I believe that the writing will go smoother again. **

**Thanks Child At Heart Forever for helping me out with the plot!**

**Question (Just because I'm interested): What kind of magic would you guys like to have?  
Again, I would totally love to have Ilse's magic. XD **

**See ya!**

**-Ink**


	9. The perfect team

**Hey Hey Hey!**

**I'm so glad I finished this chapter, since I'm really excited for the next one! **

**To be honest with you guys, the writing wasn't delayed because I had wifi issues at home, but because I was on a short holiday to London. I just didn't want to post that news before I left (thnx school social-media education!). But I got this super cute Fairy Tail and Attack on Titan keychain for my phone. So happy. (Did I also mention I have the Happy hat? I'm wearing it right now! LOL)**

**I'm not too happy with how this chapter turned out, but I'm content enough.**

**Hope you guys enjoy reading!**

**-Ink**

What was wrong with their gazes? The moment I spoke up, suggesting that maybe I could take Yara's place and merge with Juvia to wake the ink-demon, Ohredos' eyes sparked almost with... satisfaction? _And why was he smirking for a second? _Yara just looked sad, as if I just told her that the whole plan was destined to fail.

"I-I mean... I can learn about looking into the future and stuff, right? I do have the same magic as Yara, and I'm certain it'll work out just fine." The more I thought about it, the more confident I became. I was going to be able to do this! We were still going to save magnolia and everything was going to be alright!

Ohredos clapped his hands together. "You're right. I'm sure that you are able to learn that easily. With your magic and knowledge, it will be a piece of cake."

"What knowledge?" _What is he talking about? The only things I know are what I learned from Yara and Ohredos, so I don't know more than she does. So why mention knowledge?_He looked at Yara, then back at me, and then back at Yara. Yara sighed.

"Alright, I'll tell her." She looked me in the eye. "Ilse, a few years ago, I found this old book, hidden away in an old store. When I asked the owner what it was, she said it was some sort of holy book belonging to a really old and forgotten religion. I was interested and bought the book..." She hesitated.

"Go on..." I said

"It spoke of a third world, other than Edolas or Earthland. The book called it the "Creator's Atelier". It's a place where creatures live who make up all kinds of worlds, also ours. The book spoke of three kinds of creatures: the 'Creators', the 'Takers' and the 'Elaborators'. Apparently, the Creators make up and entire new world, and often create characters in that world. They decide their relationships and pasts. Then they create stories about those characters in those worlds..." She coughed a few times. Talking about this was certainly wearing her out.

"Are you okay?" I rushed to her side and rubbed her back. "Maybe you need to stop. You're exhausted."

"No, you need to know this." she whispered, taking my hand from her back and pushing me away lightly. "You won't be able to merge with Juvia if you don't!" I crossed my arms.

"Then give me that book! You need to rest Yara" I said, pushing her down into lying position. She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. After Ohredos had left to get the book, she took my hand and squeezed it tightly. "Are you in pain?" I asked. _Stupid question, of course she is. _But she waved it off.

"I'm fine, don't worry." she ensured, but then her expression changed. Frowning, she stared into the fire for a while. "Ilse, I just want you to know that..."

"Here's the book." Ohredos joined us and tossed the book into my lap. _Ouch! That hurt!_

"... really love you, despite the fact that I'm just your foster parent." I smiled and hugged her. I kept a straight face.

_That wasn't what she was about to tell me. Why would she change her sentence the moment Ohredos comes back. Did she want to tell me something Ohredos doesn't want her to? Or is it something she knows and he doesn't? This is so weird. No wait, Ohredos was already acting weird as soon as this subject came up. I could trust these people right? No, of course I can. They may be strange, but they were there for me when I was alone. I can trust them, for... sure._

I studied the book he gave me. It was very old, and it smelled musty. "Oof!" I exclaimed when I tried to lift it. _Don't judge a book by it's cover. Literally. _The book was way heavier then I expected. I braced myself this time and rose to my feet, carrying the book as if it was a tray full of china. "I'm going to read this thing before I go to sleep, " I pointed towards Yara. "and you are going to sleep. Good night."

Well, this book didn't really act like a lullaby. More like Zeref's Lullaby

As Yara had already told me, there were Creators, Takers and Elaborators. Creators create worlds and write stories about them. Then there were Takers. They are the Creator's audience. They read/watch the stories the Creators make, and often pay them for it.

And there were the Elaborators. They did make stories, but they didn't create worlds themselves. They copied characters, worlds or sometimes both from Creators and make their own stories with them. Some Elaborators made a character of their own and mixed them with the originals. They would often only create stories for their own fun, but there were also Takers who read their stories. So Elaborators were actually a mix of Takers and Creators together.

But here was the most interesting part: the worlds the Creators made, actually came to life! Which meant that our world was once created too. But that also meant that there were tons of different worlds, not only Edolas and Earthland. And because Edolas is known to our people, it probably belonged to the same Creator.

What really bothered me is why I had to know all of this before I could merge with Juvia. Why was this so important? Had this something to do with me being a Taker perhaps? No, that didn't make sense. If I was a Taker, then how did I end up here?

"Ilse!"

"Waaaah!" I screamed, coming back to reality.

"You're not going to tell me that you have been reading all night, are you?" Ohredos looked at me with a stern gaze.

"What time is it then?" Just now, I realized that the sun was already shining.

"Somewhere around 9AM." He replied.

"I honestly haven't slept a minute." I confessed, yawning.

"Well, too bad. There's a lot of stuff to be done today, so be up in five minutes, okay?" He said, while turning around and walking away.

After I had washed myself up (or to be more precise, wiped my body with a wet towel and used an odor-eating lacrima. Gosh, I missed the luxury of a shower) I joined Yara and Ohredos at the fireplace.

"Okay, what do we need to do first?" I asked. "Are we first going to put Juvia in the sphere or are we going to teach me the look into the future." Putting away her breakfast, Yara sat up straight and folded her legs. She looked much better than yesterday, but it didn't really surprise me if she used some sort of healing spell to speed up the process, looking at how long it took for me to recover from my shoulder wound (Poluchka wanted it to heal 'naturally').

"Were going to start your training right now, and in the mean time Ohredos will take care of the sphere." I scowled at that, since I really wanted to help and stay with Juvia. "Ilse I know you want to be with her, but we can't lose any time. Now tell me, till where have you read the book." I blushed a little.

"I finished it." Yara looked surprised for a second, but then smiled.

"You're as much as a bookworm as I am." We laughed for a second, but I got distracted and looked over her shoulder to see Ohredos carrying Juvia towards the sphere, and gently pushing her into it. I searched her face for any painful expressions, but it remained looking peaceful. _Don't worry Juvia, everything's going to be fine._

"Ilse? Earthland to Ilse! Come on, I know you've hardly slept, but you need to stay focused." Clapping her hands, Yara interrupted my thoughts.

"Sorry, sorry."

"Okay, so now you know all about the Creator's Atelier and all the kinds of people who live there, you know what I'm talking about when I say that you are probably a Taker.

"You mean I'm from a different world than this one?" I asked, still surprised. Although I had already thought of the same idea myself.

"Yes. I believe that you came here through anima that went astray and accidentally sucked you into this world. It would explain why you didn't know about magic and Edolas at first. And it would explain your dreams." Yara explained.

"Wait, how do you know about me having dreams of this weird graphic novel?" I almost yelled. I hadn't told anyone.

"During your first months with us, you talked a lot in your sleep. I first waved it off as nothing, but after reading that book again, I thought about the possibility of you being a Taker."

"And that's what I meant with knowledge." Ohredos added while he joined us and sat down. "You've probably read the story made by our Creator, so you know what's going to happen or has happened."

I pouted. "But I don't. When I dream about it, I only look at the cover of the book before my body starts moving by it's own and does other things. So I don't know anything about the story." While I was speaking, Ohredos and Yara (with a pained face) rose to their feet and took my hands, so we formed a circle. "What are you doing?"

"We know that you know the story, but all this messing with your memory, both by the anima and us, must have messed it all up. So were going to do an Unision Raid with our powers to see if we can restore all of your knowledge." Yara said, smiling at me kindly as she took Ohredos' hand.

"Wow wow wow wow wow." I withdrew mine. "Does this mean that I'll also remember my past in my home world. I don't know if I'm ready for that." Yara looked thoughtful.

"Maybe. We'll focus on your knowledge of the story, but one of the side effects can be that you'll remember your whole past, yes." I swallowed and gave them my hands. After gave me an encouraging squeeze in my hand, they both closed their eyes and started chanting.

"Redde nobis animum illiam."** A magic circle appeared under our feet.

"Redde nobis animum illiam." It grew larger as the air around us started to swirl.

"Redde nobis animum illiam." I could almost taste the powerful magic in air.

"Redde nobis animum illiam." My consciousness slowly started to fade away.

"Redde nobis anim.. ..li... ." Everything turned black and my head exploded.

.

.

.

"...se. .lse. Ilse?" I slowly opened my eyes. Yara took my hand and pulled me upright. "Did it work?"

"Whuuuuh..." was all I could answer, blinking to adjust my eyes to the sharp light of the sun. "Gimme a minute." I felt like I was going to puke. While holding my head between my knees, I waited a few minutes until the nausea was gone. And then I started laughing like a maniac. Yara looked worried, she probably thought I had lost it.

"Ilse? What's so funny?" Ohredos interrupted me.

"Ha ha, sorry sorry. I just, hahahahaha!" I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. "Okay, sorry." They were both staring at me. "I'll explain: when I first dreamed about the manga I had a volume laying on my desk. And I saw someone dying the moment before I woke up. I was worried sick about it, since I thought it would be someone from Fairy Tail who was going to die. The title of the manga was Fairy Tail, you see. But now it turns out that it was one of the first chapters, and the person wasn't even a member of the guild. It all happened long ago, in fact, is was even before Juvia had officially joined the guild." I frowned, suddenly angry at myself. _I shouldn't be laughing about someone's death._ "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing about such a thing. I'm just really relieved that no ones going to die anytime soon."

"But it worked right?" Yara asked, having cheery sparks in her eyes. "You remember the story line?" I grinned.

"Yup! Totally!" But then a thought occurred to me. "Hey... what was the last major event happening in Fiore?" I asked, wanting to know where in story line we were exactly.

"Fairy Tail has won the Grand Magic Games about a few weeks ago. And there was the problem with the dragons I heard rumors about." Ohredos said. _Okay, so I'm at the most recent point in the manga. I believe the last arc was the GMG indeed. _

"By the way," Yara spoke up. "Who died?" I swallowed.

"Do you guys know what happened at the tower of heaven?"

...

We spend the rest of our remaining month training me, chanting the spell to transform Juvia and doing research about Zeref's demons. After a long day of work ending with me almost getting stuck between future and present (a weird space of time) I asked Yara why she couldn't merge with Juvia anymore. She was still limping very badly, but she had done that powerful spell to restore part of my memory, why wasn't she able to perform magic anymore? Her magic should have been restored by now.

"During that spell, Ohredos supplied the magic. The only thing I did was casting the spell. I'm still not recovered enough to perform such powerful magic as changing the future." She explained.

Every day, I looked at Juvia's body becoming black again. Her hair was now fully black again, and her skin was a dark-blueish gray. She still looked peaceful, which made me really happy and relieved. Although I was scared of the idea of changing the future, since I didn't have much power myself, it still felt good that I was the one going to be merged with the water mage. I didn't want her to merge with a semi-stranger. And I was sure that Juvia and I were going to be a perfect team for this. We weren't really close friends, but we grew more towards each other the last days before her entering the sphere. And the blue(or now black) haired girl had earned a special place in my heart.

...

"Okay Ilse, today is the day. You remember the plan?" Yara rub-a-dubbed her fingers on her knee, while she sat at the other side of the fireplace. It was just morning and we were finished with our daily meditation exercise.

"Yes. After I merged with Juvia, we'll walk around the hideout for a few minutes to get used to our new body. After that you'll help me cast the spell to travel to the future and prevent Zeref's demon from waking up. We'll have about two hours for that. When the power in the lacrima runs out, we'll return to the present. Then we'll try if we succeed in splitting. If not, we'll get help from medics, right?" I repeated the plan that had been knocked into my head these last days.

"Good. She rose, limped around the fireplace and gestured me to stand up too. When I stood upright she gave me a tight hug, giving me the courage I needed. Then we walked over to Ohredos.

Juvia's body was now entirely black, and she was awake. "Juvia! You're awake?" I ran towards the sphere and pressed my hands against it. "Are you in pain?" She smiled and shook her head.

"Looks like the anesthesia wore off a little earlier than expected. But that doesn't matter." Ohredos came walking towards us from behind the sphere, carrying the lacrima with Fairy Tail's power, which was connected to the sphere with a small cord made of light. I nodded and smiled at Juvia, who immediately grinned. "Alright then. Take your places." Ohredos put down the lacrima and walked behind the sphere again. Yara went to the opposite side. As soon as the lock was broken, I pressed my body against it and entered the sphere.

I wished there were pools like this. When you float around in a sphere, you can breathe normally, but you can still feel the water move around your body. And being the swim-lover that I was, I loved it. I swam towards Juvia and gave her a hug saying: Let's do this together!" When she broke it, she pointed at Ohredos, who was tapping his wrist meaning: hurry up! We need to start. We both chuckled at him and then turned around, floating back to back in the middle of the sphere. Yara and Ohredos started walking circles around us and I saw magic energy being pumped into the sphere from the lacrima. As soon as it entered it, something really weird happened.

My vision darkened, and I could only feel myself breathing in and out. I felt the water swirl around me faster and faster, like a whirlpool. Suddenly my breathing became unstable. It was like I had 2 pairs of lungs and I had to breath in twice and out twice to get oxygen. In, in, out, out.

In, in, out, out.

In, in, in, in, in, in, in, in... "BAAAAAAM"

out.

My breathing was normal again and my vision came back. I lifted my arms to look at them, running my fingers over the soft, black skin. My skin had always been rough, since the day I was born. But this skin was so soft. Hypnotized, I kept admiring them. _Can you please stop? That tickles Juvia._

That's right, Yara had explained that Juvia would experience everything I did. She couldn't control the body, but she did see, feel and hear everything I did. I controlled the body, and we could talk in our head.

_Sorry, got a little distracted. Your skin is so much smoother than mine!_

_Juvia takes that as a compliment, but likes to remind you that we have limited time in this form._

_Ooh yeah, right. Sorry._

We moved out of the sphere, and stepped onto the floor. I looked at our clothes. We wore Juvia's dress, but instead of her hat, our hair was pulled back by my orange scarf. While walking around for a while, we practiced our movements and magic. Our attack were now combined, such as "Ink Nebula" and "Ink slicer". Once we had mastered our new form, we walked back to Yara and Ohredos.

"Are you ready?" Yara asked?

_Juvia is ready. _she sounded in my head.

"Yes we are ready." I replied.

"Then chant the spell, there's no time to waste" Ohredos yelled, still from behind the sphere.

"Ad tempum futurum!" *** I yelled. And everything vanished.

* * *

****: Give us back her spirit (Or in this case, memory)**

*****: To the future (literally: future time)**

**Sorry if there are mistakes in my Latin or in my translations. I did do a course once where there were all these foreign people who only spoke Latin with us, but I didn't really learn much from it. XD**

**So that was it guys! Sorry for the late update. I think I'm going to move my standard update day from Friday to Sunday, since I always do the most writing at the end of the week. Also, again sorry for the lack of action. But there will be some in the next chapter!**

**Hope you guys enjoyed reading this. Please leave a review, it would make me super happy! (AYE SIR!)**

**I want to thank Child At Heart Forever for all her nice messages. You keep me writing the most!**

**See ya!**

**-Ink**


	10. Don't judge a book by it's cover

**Tadaima! Did you miss me? XD Sorry for the wait! Enjoy reading!**

**Note: I switch between I and we when describing Ilse and Juvia's actions. I'll use I when Ilse does something that only has an effect on her state, while I'll use we when the action counts for both her and Juvia. Remeber: Ilse has all the control, Juvia can only talk in their head. She'll feel the same things as Ilse though. For example: when Ilse picks up a piece of glass and cuts herself, Juvia will feel that too. But when Ilse is sad or scared, and her heartbeat raises, Juvia's wont. Also, when Ilse makes a sound or says something, I'll also use I. But when she screams (out of agony) I'll use we, since Juvia feels that too.**

The spell worked this way: by chanting it, the time would move forward at incredible speed. I needed to travel to a month from now, so as long as I kept the magic running we would go travel further. We watched the hideout and the flashes named Ohredos and Yara doing their everyday stuff.

_Juvia thinks that mister Ohredos and miss Yara are very consistent in their daily activities._

She was right. They did exactly the same thing every day. Yara got up, had breakfast and went studying. And when it was dark she would have supper with Ohredos and go back to bed. The wizard himself did the same thing, except that he just went into the forest to come back with all sorts of plants to make into medicine instead of studying.

_Ilse-san? How do we know when a month has passed? Do we have to count or something?_

_No no, Yara said that she would light a second fire at the right date, so I'm waiting for that._

We waited a few more minutes, untill I finally saw Yara struggling with a lighter-lacrima next to a huge pile of wood. I decided that it would be best if we came out now, since I didn't want to miss the moment.

"Nos pervenivimus."** Time slowed down to it's normal speed until we were able to move normally. A little dizzy, we approached Yara and waved at her. As soon as she saw us, she gave a little smile and rose to her feet.

_Isn't miss Yara's smile a little sad? _Juvia asked. I agreed, her smile was bright, but her eyes showed her worries and doubts. What could be eating her away? She did trust us to finish the mission right?

"Hey Ilse, and Juvia of course. I'm not going to waste to much time talking to you, but I did some research on the demon and it appears that you can enter the demon's cave through a passage located on the other side of the city." She said, showing us a map and pointing at the location. "It was the plan of an old disbanded dark guild to wake the beast up and let it destroy the town, but apparently the whole guild got destroyed by Gildarts before they started. They did mess around in it's cave though, so you need to find out what the reason is the demon wakes up and stop it, okay?" While instructing us, I couldn't help but notice that she was trembling.

"Yara, are you okay? You're shaking as if it's winter." I said, wanting to hug her, but keeping in mind that that might be awkward for Juvia. She gave a shaky nod.

"I'm fine." She looked even more sad. "Now go! You shouldn't waste your time waiting here!" She pointed towards the city. "Here's a cloak... a little disguise is always useful." She handed us a dark blue cloak, probably one of Ohredos, since it was a little too large. After giving her a encouraging squeeze in her hands, we put it on and the hood over our head, only showing my orange scarf dangling from our shoulder, and ran off to the city.

Crossing the city was difficult. Not that we got discovered or anything, but we got slowed down too much for my taste. Going around was not an option, that would even take more time. But through the city meant... running into them.

The first one we saw was Lisanna, talking to Elfman while they hang around in one of the larger streets. As we ran past them, I could hear a part of their conversation:

"Grim mood these days... New girl..."

"Juvia... want to know what she was thinking... always evil?"

I scowled. _We are surely the main topic in the guild, aren't we._

_Juvia thinks so too. She feels sad that we couldn't tell them._

We caught Elfman's attention, but before he could look a second time, we fled into an alley, taking a detour. This was bad, we only had limited time and detours weren't scheduled. I was too busy with my thoughts that I didn't even hear Juvia's warning before we literally bumped into someone. The person was tall... with long black hair...

"Oy, look where you're walking, Cloaky!"

"I'm sorry, Ga..." I was just in time to stop myself from saying his name, and we ran away. I could almost feel his gaze following us. We ran until we found a hiding spot near the main road, halfway to our destination. _Everything okay, Juvia?_

_Yes, Juvia finds it difficult to see all her friends, but she knows it's for the best._

_Okay, let's take a final sprint, so we won't lose to much time. I hope that we don't run into someone anymore._

_Juvia doesn't know if she agrees with that or not._

I smirked. She was right. Although I was really scared of being discovered by our guildmates, I actually loved seeing some of them just now. I couldn't really help it. _Okay, here we go!_

We started sprinting, taking a smaller road parallel to a larger one to avoid the crowds. Sometimes having to elbow the people we crashed into away. The gate of the city was in sight, three blocks to go, two blocks to go, one block to...

We bumped into someone again. While shouting "Excuse me!" we pushed the person to the side, but forgetting to be gentle and accidentally throwing him to the ground. "I'm sorry!" I yelled while running further. Once we were outside the city, we leaned against at tree and took the time to actually breathe again. While sinking to our knees, we discussed what to do next.

_If Juvia recalls it correctly, the entrance to the cave was at the end of a little side road we should come across soon after leaving the city. But, Ilse-san, didn't we draw a little too much attention?_

_We did. _I groaned. _I just hope no one comes after us. Is there any way to distract them?_

_Oh, Juvia knows! Ilse-san can 'accidentally' drop some ink at the beginning of a wrong path, leading the Dragon Slayers the wrong way, while we take the right path._

_That wouldn't work, we would only be giving away our smell. The Dragon Slayers don't know what we smell like yet, and we also don't want them to. They would track us down with ease. At least, I think Gajeel didn't guess it was us just now... But still, I'd say we just go and finish this quickly._

_Ilse-san's right. Let's go._

We followed the main path from the gate till we found the one Juvia had mentioned, hidden away by some bushes thick enough to hide it from the not-looking eye. But easy enough to find for the people who searched for it. After walking around for another five minutes, the entrance was visible.

I was astonished, it was beautiful. The cave was surrounded by magnolia trees, their branches decorating the dull brown-gray stone. On the side, there was a small text carved in the stone, the letters filled out with gold.

"He who is forgotten rests in here.  
If men were to wake him up, their days would be over.  
Warned are those who read this.  
Do not wake the sleeping."

Juvia's next comment really made me tear up, despite the seriousness of the situation.

_Juvia thinks the author of that text is a horrible poet._

I totally agreed. It sounded like me trying to be all special and poetic when I was younger... Wait, how did I know...

_Did Ilse-san hear that too?_

_Hear what?_

_Listen..._

I focused on my hearing. Yes, there was a really soft snoring sound, coming from the darkness inside the cave. It wasn't really snoring... more like deep breathing, as if there was a person asleep, which, kind off, was the situation here. I swallowed, clenching my fists. All the brightness from the laughter just a moment ago was gone, vanished with the in- and exhales from the beast beneath us.

_Ready to enter?_

_Juvia is ready when you are, Ilse-san._

I took a deep breath, trying to push away my fear, and we entered the cave. While we walked down, I awed at the beauty of the walls. They were decorated with drawings, showing the fierce battles between people and Zeref's demons. I recognized Deliora, standing in the wreckage of a village, covered with snow. Running my fingers over the painting, I couldn't help but think about Gray. The guy had gone through so much, and when he finally got close to Juvia, this stupid project took her away. How was I ever going to forget my guilt? Not, for sure.

When we got deeper into the cave, things became harder. Not only didn't we have any light, but apparently the ceilings weren't strong enough to carry their weight, and huge pieces of rock blocked our way from time to time. We had to blow them away using our spells, which made me worry. We were probably going to need a lot of magical energy to complete our actual task, and all these blockades took both time and energy. "Ink Nebula!" And the further we descended, the larger the rocks became. "Ink Slicer!" We were able to walk another five meters, before we bumped into the larges boulder so far. I snorted. This was going to take multiple spells. "Ink Nebula!"

_Juvia thinks that won't be enough. _Of course it wasn't. We only scratched it.

_Is a Unison Raid possible in this form? _I asked, thinking deeply.

_We could try..._ We took a fighting stance, stretching our right arm towards the stone, while making a fist on our chest with the other.

_Ready?! Three... two... one..._

"Unison Raid!" I screamed, Juvia yelling along in our head. A large whirlpool shot out of our hand, busting against the boulder. We put in more pressure, shouting harder and harder. Cracks started appearing. More pressure, more energy. More cracks. Until, with one loud rumble, the stone mass broke apart, giving us a free way. I almost wanted to shout in victory, but I was just in time to shut my mouth, as I saw what was behind the mess...

... he was almost... cute.

Well, if you ignored the deafening snores, that is.

The demon was nothing like I had expected. Behind the boulder we destroyed, there was a large open space, the ceiling probably fifteen meters high. To think that this was hidden under Magnolia...

In the middle, chained to the ground, there was a little boy with white hair, large eyes and a large white uni-brow, revealing that he was indeed a demon. To little fangs were pointing upwards from his face, reminding me a little of Natsu, despite the fact that Natsu's were pointing downwards. Every time he inhaled, it was almost as if his lungs were endless, for his inhales took minutes. His exhales took even longer.

_Is this really, a demon...? _Juvia whispered, forgetting that he couldn't hear her.

_Yes, it is. _I frowned. _Take a look at the walls..._

Said walls were showing paintings, all beautifully drawn and detailed, but the information they showed was a little more grim. The most left one was a picture of a little figure, lost inside a dark forest, and crying. The picture after that showed a group of people, probably a local tribe, who found the boy and took him in. The next ones showed scenes with the boy being happy. But the next one described how the shaman of the village pointed out that the kid was a demon. The villagers didn't listen to him though, and continued caring for the kid. But the shaman, angry because of his people's ignorance, proved the boy's curse by sticking a knife into his body, and showing to his people that he didn't die. He angered the demon by that, and it grew out to it's full size, a huge beast with enormous fangs, standing on four legs. His tail as long as a tree, and his uni-brow ten times as large. He murdered the tribe and their shaman, then traveled further, destroying everything in it's path. Until he arrived at a certain mountain, named Hakobe. There, a really old and forgotten guild was able to catch him and make him fall back to his child size. They then locked him up in this cave, and founded a city above, called Magnolia, after their guild.

_Juvia is impressed by the Magnolia guild. How were they able to shrink the demon?_

_I don't know, it doesn't go into detail there..._

Suddenly, little sobs could be heard, coming from the ground. The demon was softly sobbing, tears falling from under his eyelashes and streaming to the ground. The sobs were so sweet, comparing to the loud snores he made earlier.

_He must be having a nightmare. _I said, walking towards him, wanting to ruffle his hair to calm him down.

_Ilse-san, don't! _I recoiled. _He's still a demon! You can't wake him up! _Juvia remembered me. _Juvia thinks it is time to look for what will wake him up and stop that._

_Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry._

Though, was the boy evil? The demon was, obviously, but the boy? The only reason he unleashed his Etherious form was because of that mean shaman, otherwise he would probably be raised like a normal kid. Wasn't there anything we could do for the kid? Destroy the demon form? Give him a second chance? There had to be something...

_Ilse-san? We need to start searching. _Juvia snapped me out of my thoughts.

_Sorry, I was carried away. Isn't there a way to help him?_

_No, Juvia wants to help him just as bad as you, Ilse-san, but there isn't enough information for us to say that he isn't evil. So we can't._

_I guess you're right about that. _I agreed. _Okay then, let's start searching._

We started looking around, searching for things capable of waking up little kids that can snore really loudly. But the more we searched, the more anxious we became and the less we couldn't focus. We were running out of time!

_Dammit! Why can't we find anything!_

_Juvia doesn't know. What could possibly be the reason to wake him up?_

_No idea! Not a single clue!_

_Why didn't he wake up after we made all that noise, when we broke the boulder in our way?_

_Maybe he doesn't wake from a sound..._

We sat down, crossing our legs and going through all the places we searched in our thoughts again. Until...

"RUMBLE!"

Startled by the loud sound, we jumped up, looking around where it came from. Eventually, we looked up the ceiling, cracks appearing on it everywhere. We watched the cracks, thought about the rubble we had to work through to get here, looked at the ceiling again, and made the link.

_The ceiling is going to collapse! _We shouted at the same time.

_What are we going to do? _I yelled.

_Juvia doesn'... Wait, Juvia does! Ilse-san, you can control ink right? _Juvia yelled back.

_Sort of, if I use a pencil!_

_Well, Juvia can control the water, so we can build a net to catch the rubble falling onto the demon!_

_Right!_

We sprinted towards the chained kid, just in time to look up and see the giant boulder that was about to crush us.

**Dun Dun Dun!**

**** We have arrived.**

**I'm so happy writing went smooth again! The break and the new project did help! I know this chapter is kind of short, but I hope you guys like it anyway. What do you think of the cover I made? I'm not too proud of it, but it's good enough, I think. It's Juvia and Ilse after they merged.**

**Well, see you guys next chapter!**

**See ya,**

**-Ink**

**P.S.: Shoutout for Child At Heart Forever for being an awesome writer and friend! Thanks for all the advice!**


	11. Savior or not?

**Hey hey!**

**I'm back from the dead! Woohooooo! **

**I'm so sorry for the weird update times, but I quit updating on the same day because deadlines make me nervous, and that has its effect on my writing. So I'm content with one update a week, on a random day.**

**Enjoy reading!**

Just our luck. Well, we were lucky to be able to react quick enough and summon a giant ink mass above our head, catching the boulder. But the big rock, together with already heavy ink, was way too much to be carried by one mage alone.

_Uugh, it's way... to heavy to... keep... lifting this... thing. We need to... throw it... aside. _I couldn't even speak properly.

_Juvia... doesn't... know... if we have... enough... strength for that. _The concentration needed to maintain the magic was rapidly tiring us already.

We tried to rise our arms higher, hoping to ease the weight a little. It felt like someone was trying to crush our spine. If we didn't get rid of this thing, we would become a pancake, and the demon would wake up. We couldn't let that happen.

_We need... to try, Ilse-...san. Juvia... can't..._

_Okay... Try to put... all your power... in this one move..._

"1!" I started screaming out loud, trying to push all my fear and anger into our muscles. "2" Our legs started trembling from exhaustion. "3! NOW!"

We couldn't move. "Come on! Move!" I didn't know if I was yelling at us or at the rock. More anger, more power. "GAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" I yelled. "COME ON!"

Nothing happened. Tears started spilling from our eyes. It was too much. Just too much.

_Juvia, I... we... what... _I was too tired to express myself. Juvia didn't even react, did she pass out? She was already a little weak because of her time in the sphere... Our magic energy was fading and our muscles were burning. My vision was turning hazy. I felt so helpless, I just wanted to crouch in a corner and cry. I wanted to escape the pain in our body, escape the idea that Juvia was hurting because of my stupid actions, escape from the responsibility we held.

But this was reality, and I couldn't escape. I had to go though this. A memory made it's way into my consciousness:

-"Mom, I just can't tell her! There must be another way!" I was screaming at someone, but the image was unclear. "Why don't you call her mother and tell her what happened? Then she can tell Lizz what happened, and then I can apologize to her tomorrow at school. That way, I don't have to tell her by myself."

The person across the room, probably my mother, replied something, but it was as if she was talking under water, and I couldn't make up anything she was saying. The me from the memory screamed even louder.

"But I don't want to tell her, she'll hate me! She'll leave me standing before I can say sorry! She won't want to be my friend anymore!-

What was going on? Why was I remembering that now? Another vision appeared:

-I was at someone's office, sitting in a chair before a large desk. Someone at the other side was lecturing me.

"Ilse, we know you don't want to admit that you are afraid, but you only won't admit it because you don't want us to tell you to face your fear." I couldn't see the person's face, but he had a soft and soothing voice. I mumbled something in response, I couldn't even hear it myself.

"Ilse, you can't go around the problem. You need to face it. You know that, right?"-

I swallowed. I had no idea who that person was, but he was indeed right. I had to face this problem, and there wasn't even a way to go around this. Though... we just weren't strong enough to do this. There was just no way this could end right...

No we had to do this! Magnolia couldn't be destroyed. Our whole life was here! Well, I was going to leave after all this, but Juvia wouldn't. For her, for everyone in the guild, in Magnolia, we had to succeed! We couldn't mess up. Failing was not an option. Fairy Tail took me in like I was one of them, now I had to return the favor. I had betrayed them once, but this time, this time... this time...

We sank to our knees. I couldn't... we couldn't. Black dots were dancing before my eyes. I tried blinking them away, but every time I closed our eyelids, it became harder to open them. Breathing was already hard, but now it was unbearable. I didn't even have the power to cry. But I was able to stay conscious for a little while longer... barely.

"Help... us..." Our eyes were almost closed, only a small stripe of light remaining.

".ce ..ke.. flo.."

What...? My mind wasn't able to make sense of anything.

"Ice ..ke... ..mmer"

A voice echoed through the cave... was someone coming down?

"Ice .ake... l..nce!"

Crashing sounds were coming from the entrance, someone was definitely coming down. Who...?

"Ice make: Gun!"

A person broke through all the rubble that had fallen down and blocked the entrance of the cave.

Oh no.

Not him.

Everyone but him.

Gray Fullbuster stared in shock at our figure: struggling with the heavy ink mass we had to carry, a large boulder floating in it. Within a second, he blasted the rock away with his lances and pulled us away from the little demon, who was still snoring peacefully. I didn't have any strength left, but I was able to pull down the hood and make sure Gray couldn't see our face, which was Juvia's. I also made sure her clothing wasn't visible. We couldn't afford him to discover us. If he did... I didn't want to think about that.

"Are you okay?" The ice-mage's voice brought me back to reality. I had to use all my power to keep myself from stuttering.

"Yes, t-thank you." I whispered softly. What if he recognized my voice? I did have my own voice, not Juvia's. But I had been around in the guild for a long time...

"What the hell was that then? Who is that kid on the ground?" I couldn't see his face from under our hood, but I could imagine he was frowning. "Is he the demon that bad poem at the opening speaks of?" I nodded. "And...?" He obviously wanted me to elaborate. I swallowed, before telling him everything that happened, leaving out the details about Juvia of course. Or that we came from the past.

We were silent for a few minutes, and I was wondering how Gray had found us. And why him? Was he the last person we pushed away before exiting the city? I hadn't paid any attention to who that person was... It was as if fate wanted to get us busted.

"So..." Gray coughed. "I think we need to get going. Were are you from anyway?" I froze.

"Er... I-I'm from a small guild in a town nearby. I think I need to head back." I smiled. "Thanks for saving me, Gray."

"No probl..." He frowned deeply. "Did I ever tell you my name?"

Oh. Crap.

And at that exact moment, Juvia decided to regain consciousness again.

_Ilse-san... _She sounded sleepy. _Where are we?_

Shit, I couldn't handle two tricky conversations at once.

_Juvia, can you go to sleep for a minute longer, please? I need to handle this._

_Why, Juvia can help you, right?_

"Oy, answer me!"

_Who is that, Ilse-san?_

_I can't talk right now, Juvia. Can you PLEASE be quiet?_

Gray was mumbling something. I could almost feel his eyes, traveling up and down our appearance, trying to discover who we were.

"Scarf..." He was connecting the dots. "Wait a minute!" He clapped his hands together and scowled. "If you are who I think you are, you have a big problem." His voice was low and serious.

_Is that Gray... -sama's voice...?_

I pulled the hood lower, so I could only see the ground, which automatically meant that Juvia wouldn't be able to see her beloved standing before us. There was a short silence.

Then, the bomb exploded.

"WHERE IS JUVIA, ILSE?" Gray roared, dashing towards me, an ice sword ready in his hands.

_Gray-sama! Gray-sama! Juvia is here! Juvia is here! _Juvia was obviously crying.

What other choice was there than to run?

Which was exactly what I did.

"I'm sorry!" I yelled while we ran to the exit.

_No NO! Juvia wants to go to Gray-sama! Please let Juvia speak to Gray-sama! _Juvia wailed.

_Juvia! Calm down! This isn't your Gray! This is the Gray from the future! _

_Juvia doesn't care! She wants to go to Gray-sama!_

_Juvia..._

I wanted to cry so badly, scream and kick something. This was so unfair. I wanted to talk to my friends too, and I felt bad too. But at this rate, we were going to get caught soon. And then it would be over. We had to go...

That was it! We could escape by travelling back in time! Now all I needed was a hiding spot where I could peacefully cast the spell...

We exited the cave, and I happily breathed in the fresh air. But we didn't stop running, Gray was still behind us, yelling my name. Panting, we followed the small path, back to the larger road and to the city-gate. We zigzagged through small alleys, large main roads, crowds and occasional guild members. There was a place we could hide, but we had to make sure we were far ahead of Gray, otherwise he would find us with ease. Luckily these crowds were a big help, and after pushing ourselves through an incredibly busy shopping street, I was confident that we had lost him. We kept going for a few minutes until we arrived at the place.

A certain like cat-pee smelling alley.

We ran to the end, pushed the button and moved through the wall. Once inside, we plopped on the floor, unable to properly breathe. Juvia was still crying.

_Gray-sama... _She sobbed. _Gray-sama... Juvia is sorry... _This broke my heart.

_Juvia, you didn't do anything wrong. Please don't blame yourself..._ She didn't answer. _Juvia?_

_Juvia is sorry for Gray-sama, having to go through all this. _She was still mad at me for running away.

_You know that we can't interact with them too much. The more we interact with him now, the less we can interact with them once we get back. _

_You mean Juvia can't talk to Gray-sama once she we are back?!_

_Look, Gray came here to save us, right? Without him, we would have died. If we tell him everything once we get back to the present, or interact with Fairy Tail at all, there might be a chance that the future will be changed, and he won't come to save us, so our future selves die, and the demon still wakes up. So all our effort just now would be for nothing. _

_Ilse-san is right. Juvia is sorry for acting like a brat. _Regret could truly be heard from her voice. I smiled.

_It doesn't matter Juvia, I really understand what you're going through now. Let's focus on going back for now._

_Right, all Ilse-san has to do is cast the spell, right?_

_Yes. Let's go._

We folded our legs, straightened our back and intertwined our hands. "Ad tempum preasens!"** I yelled, not too loud. We waited... and nothing happened.

_Dammit! We're still out of magic energy! _I cursed.

_Does this mean we won't be able to go back at all until our energy is restored, Ilse-san?_

_No, remember the lacrima? The magic should run out withing 15 minutes, maybe more or less. If that happens we'll return automatically. All we have to do is hide and wait._

_Okay._

_..._ There was a short and uncomfortable silence. We both knew what topic was really burning between us.

_Didn't Gray-sama see Juvia's face?_

_No, I made sure he didn't. That would make things way more complicated, and they already are._

_Oh.  
So he doesn't know that he was talking to Juvia?_

_No, I guess not._

_..._

_What if he finds us and attacks us again? We can't fight, Ilse-san._

_We'll have to, somehow._

_..._

_Ilse-san? _Her voice had a different tone now.

_Yes?_

_When all this is over, Juvia wants to go on a job with you. We make a good team, don't we?_

I smiled.

_Yes, we do. And I'll happily go on a job with you... _I hesitated for a moment._ ... but I don't think the guild won't accept me anymore._

_Juvia knows for sure that the guild will accept you without hesitation as soon as they know what happened._

_You think so?_

_She knows so._

"ILSE!" Gray's voice came from outside. We froze.

He was in the alley.

Crap.

"Dammit... stupid wall..." We backed away from the wall. Gray was on the other side trying to find the button to open the passage.

_Ilse-san, we need to hide. _Juvia was strangely calm. We ran into the only room in the house and closed the door behind us.

"Ice make: Gun!" The sounds of breaking wood could be heard, as Gray broke the wall and entered the hallway. He walked this way, and pushed against the door. We desperately tried to block it, pushing back with all our strength. At least, all the strength we had left. It didn't last long. Gray threw all his weight at the door and it slammed open, pushing us back. Before he saw our, or Juvia's, face, I pulled the hood over our face again. The young man walked up to us, while we recoiled until we stood with our back against the wall.

"G-Gray... I-I" I whispered. He only frowned. It was clear that he was furious, but still able to control it.

"Where is Juvia?" His voice quivered slightly.

"I-I..." I could only stutter.

_Hang in there Ilse-san!_

I smiled again, Juvia was so sweet and brave. But it was the wrong expression in this situation.

"You think this is funny?" A vein on his forehead grew larger and larger. "You can laugh?" He had to use all his strength to keep calm. The temperature was dropping fast.

"No, no! I don't. Really!" I answered quickly. I had to keep the conversation going. The lacrima could run out of power any minute now, and we would get send back to the present. "H-how did you know it was me?" I tried changing the topic. Gray raised an eyebrow.

"Because of your scarf of course." Oddly enough, his mood changed a little. "You're just as paranoid as Natsu with that thing." A memory popped up again:

-"Oy, Ilse? Why do you always wear that scarf in you hair? Don't tell me you got it from you dragon foster parent, or something." Gray smirked as Natsu immediately dashed our way.

"ARE YOU A DRAGON SLAYER?!" he yelled, jumping up and down. I sweatdropped.

"I'm not, calm down, Natsu!" I giggled.

"Then why do you wear it all the time?" Gray asked. I took the scarf out of my hair and walked towards him.

"Because of this." I showed him the label sewed into the inside. With light-blue ink, there was a little text scrabbled into it.

"For Ilse, from mom. Happy birthday sweetheart!" The Ice mage read out loud. "Well that explains it." His fingers trailed off towards his necklace, but I didn't bother asking him why.-

I had been stupid for not taking it off before we went on our mission. It was still clearly visibly, dangling from under the hood.

_Ilse-san... shouldn't we be back by now? _Juvia sounded nervous.

_We should. I don't know what is going on. Maybe Yara and Ohredos thought that we weren't finished yet and somehow added another power resource. _I paled at the thought. _That would mean that we have to talk our way out of this..._

Gray broke out of his daze. And frowned even deeper.

"Okay, nice try distracting me, but now I want an answer. Where. Is. Juvia?" His fists started glowing. I swallowed. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, we started walking sideways, while I kept talking.

"Gray... I'm sorry. You know I am. All I can tell you is that Juvia is alright. I can't tell you where she is, but she is okay. Believe me..." My voice trailed off. We now had the door at our left, and the wall at our left. The only thing left was to take a sprint and hope that we could have the advantage of surprise... we wanted to move, but something scared me so much that we froze.

Gray was laughing.

It was not a laugh out of joy. It sounded nervous, angry, ridiculous. He kept laughing until it suddenly stopped. And he started shouting.

"YOU CAN'T TELL? YOU BETRAYED US! YOU HURT US! AND NOW YOU SAY YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHERE JUVIA IS?"

Juvia was sobbing loudly. Her sadness reflected my own tenfold. This was all such a big mess.

"IF YOU WON'T TELL ME, I'LL MAKE YOU!" He took a fighting stance.

Where was the cool Gray? Where was the Gray that would always shrug things off? Where was the guy I had been friends with? His anger took him over. This was getting dangerous.

Suddenly, a new wave of energy washed over us. And at the same moment, the temperature dropped to below zero. We had to escape.

We took the sprint. The door was only three meter away.

"OH NO YOU WON'T!" the raven haired screamed. "ICE MAKE:..."

We were in the hallway, about to dash through the hole in the wall Gray had made.

"LANCE!"

In his fury, he hadn't hold back. He fired with all his might, letting out all his worries, sadness and anger.

Before we could escape, one lance pierced us. At the exact same spot of my scar.

The pain was unbearable.

We crashed on the ground. Black liquid was spilling out of the wound. Blood polluted with ink. I could hear Gray gasp, probably horrified by what he just did. But I barely realized the sound. Juvia's screams were catching my attention now.

_Aaaaah! Aaaah! It hurts! It hu-u-urts! _

"Ughh." I groaned. We needed to get away, but we couldn't move. Our whole body was limp. Gray fell on his knees next to us.

"Ilse! I'm so sorry! I didn't know what I was doing! I'm so sorry!" Before I could protest, he turned our body around, so we were now laying on our back. "Hold on!" He froze the wound.

"Aaah!" Both me and Juvia screamed. He turned our body again and froze the back side too. But then the hood fell off.

I couldn't do anything about it. He made sure we were laying comfortable, before he stared me in the eyes.

Or were they the eyes of his beloved?

His eyes widened. This was probably a major shock for him. Despite the pain, I was now more worried for his reaction.

But it didn't matter, because before he even could react

.

.

.

we punched him in the face.

****: To the present **

**Sorry guys, I have something with cliffhangers today. I'm literally shaking from excitement right now. I'm sure you won't be able to guess what's going to happen next chapter. But do try. I really want to know what you think! *Smirks evilly***

**So how was this chapter? It's true that I got my inspiration for that first part from Rick Riordan's books: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I've got most of the plot figured out now. So now I'm all fired up to write further! XD**

**Hope you guys liked it! Please leave a review, I always love to get tips! **

**That's all for now.**

**See ya,**

**-Ink **


	12. It wasn't me, it was just my voice

**OMG Guys I'm so sorry I'm so late. All my excuses: lack of inspiration, exam week, not knowing how to continue. You can choose a legit one out of those.**

**I'm not going to say much. Enjoy reading!**

"Gah!" we both shrieked. Even the tiniest bit of movement sent a terrible pain through our body, with the ice hardly numbing it. The ice mage himself flew backwards and hit the wall with his head. Groaning softly, he grasped his head with his hands, swaying back and forth.

_Gray-sama...? _Juvia asked, surprising me she was able to speak despite the pain. _G-Gray-sama? _I could hear her taking deep breaths to keep calm herself.

"What the..." Gray whispered, recovering from his dazed state. Slowly, he rose to his feet and tested if his nose was broken by pinching the bridge of it. We copied him, also rising to our feet while letting out groans of pain. There was something wrong with our movement though, almost like our limbs responded a second too late to everything my nerve system ordered them. But I shrugged it off. There were more important matters for now.

I wanted to open our mouth to apologize, I hadn't really meant to punch him, it was sort of a reflex, but it stayed firmly shut. Why couldn't I speak? What was wrong with our body? Wasn't I supposed to have the control over it? Why didn't our mouth open though?

_Ilse-san. J-Juvia wants to exp-plain everything t-to Gray-sama. Can't you tell h-him what's going o-on? _Juvia's shaky voice sounded in our head. It was rare that she didn't even mention the punch... Maybe she was too shocked to.

_I really want to, Juvia._ My voice was surprisingly steady. _But remember, we can't interact with him too much. And besides, our mouth doesn't work.__ I just can't talk... _I trailed off. Even though our body was standing straight and wasn't staggering, I could feel myself losing consciousness. Couldn't I just close my eyes for one second and relax? All we had to do was wait for the lacrima to return us home...

_Ilse-san! Are you alright? Ilse-san! _How could Juvia be so energetic? She was feeling the same pain as I did right? Maybe she hid her own pain to support me...

At that thought, I immediately felt guilty. She was going through so much, and here I was complaining about myself again.

_I-I'm okay. Don't worry. I-UGH! _I cried out as an intense wave of pain washed over us.

And then two things happened at once.

Gray, now back to normal again, grabbed our shoulders. He probably had thousands of questions, the main one being why the hell Juvia spoke with my voice or something. At the same time, a shiver went through our body, as if someone had poured a large bucket of cold water over us. I suddenly felt really weird. As if I wasn't in our body anymore, but floating next to it, only connected by senses.

_What is going.. _I wondered out loud as we started moving all of a sudden. We threw Gray off us and smashed him into the ground with incredible power. He coughed as we kicked him in the same spot he had struck us with his attack, before we pulled the hood over our head again and fled.

And I had no control over it what so ever.

Our body had now a mind of its own, as it ran through the streets, shoving everyone in our way aside (sometimes even into the canal). Each step caused a new set of wails and groans from Juvia and me.

_Wh-why did you do that, Ilse-san? You d-didn't have t-to attack G-Gray-sama that harsh! _Juvia sobbed between her moans.

_It wasn't me! I-Argh! swear! I can't control the body a-anymore! Someone i-is controlling us from the outs-side! _I screamed. _The first p-punch wasn't even mine!_ I could hear Juvia gasp at this new fact, but it was true. Ever since we got wounded, I had felt shaky, disconnected. While we were progressing everything that had just happened, someone or something had crept into our system and possessed our body. It had been controlling us all that time that I couldn't speak and probably prevented me from fainting by holding our position.

_Does Ilse-san mean that she-UGH! didn't do all that to Gray-sama? _Juvia's voice was a little steadier now.

_I swear! I swear! I swear! I would never hurt a friend... _I hesitated, realizing that wasn't true. _...if it wasn't necessary! _

_Juvia believes Ilse-san... HGN!_

The wounded was stinging more and more, and the ice cooling it was rapidly melting away. Though, the one ruling our nerve-system didn't pay any attention to it. Steering us though alleys, crowds and eventually the main street leading to... to the guild. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn't planning to...

Juvia, obviously having the same thoughts as I did shouted the idea out loud: _It-it isn't going to... _She had to take a few deep breaths before she was able to speak again. _...attack the guild, right? I-Ilse-san...?_

I let out a small sob, too taken by the fact to cry. _Yes. I-I think... it is. _

_B-but who would do such a t-thing? _

Oddly enough, my first thought was Yara and Ohredos. But no! Why would they even want to attack the guild they asked me to save? And besides, Fairy Tail had tons of enemies among the dark guilds. Anyone could have eavesdropped our plan, and set up their own to infiltrate us as soon as we were in the future, controlling us and leave without a single person suspecting them. All the blame would be taken by me and my 'parents'. I clenched my teeth. Why hadn't we thought of this before? Of course this plan was easy to infiltrate! It was already a miracle that we hadn't been discovered yet, and nothing had kept people from spying on us!

_I... Ilse-san..._ Juvia's broken voice brought me back to reality. And back to the pain, for that matter.

_Aghn! Yes-oh god._

I had been so deeply in thought that I hadn't noticed that we had already arrived at the guild. We were standing at the entrance, hiding behind the doors and looking inside. With a bit of nostalgia, I thought back at the first time I was at the guild, looking inside the same way our intruder did now.

Oh yes, intruder. I had to pay attention. But I was starting to feel drowsy, and judging by her tone, Juvia had the same problem too. There had been a lot of action, pain and emotions, and there was a limit to our energy. If there was any way Juvia and I could stop our body from attacking the guild, we wouldn't have enough energy to do it. To keep myself from falling asleep, despite everything, I focused on what was going on in the guild.

The first thing I noticed was team Natsu, minus Gray, sitting around a table to the left side of the hall, and with a downcast expression on their faces. Even Happy, who was munching on a fish, didn't live up to his name. Though he was eating his favorite food. Lucy and Wendy were discussing something with Carla, maybe they hoped the exceed could foretell if they would see Juvia anytime soon. Their pink-haired companion was having an argument with Gajeel. But instead of fighting, they kept it with words, and even Erza was involved.

Cana and Mirajane were sitting at the bar, their backs turned towards us. I could see the card mage playing with her tarots, and Mira closely following her movements. Elfman and Lisanna, apparently having returned from their walk outside, were talking with Levy and Jet, while Droy tried to devour a huge chicken leg and order a new one at the same time. The master was nowhere to be seen. Everything looked peaceful, if you forgot the grim mood everyone was in.

Suddenly, I felt a huge amount of magic building up in our body. Our intruder stepped our of its hiding place and tucked the hood of our cloak further over our head, as it made its way into the guild. The ice that had dulled the pain from our wound at first, had completely melted away, and now our body was moving again, the pain was back tenfold.

_ARGH! _Both Juvia and I screamed. Though the one controlling us felt nothing. He/she/it/whoever it was calmly kept walking forward, almost receiving no attention at all. Until we stood in the middle of the guild and Mira came walking up to us.

"Hello, can I help you?" Her bright smile was enough to break me into tears. But her face faltered. "Hey, isn't that..." she started her sentence while bringing her hand up to nothing else than my scarf. But before she could finish, the intruder made his move.

He slammed our fists together, and then to the ground.

"INK SOLDIERS!"

It was horrible to hear someone speak with my own voice. But not as horrible as the thought of who the one using it was. There was only one man I knew using this magic and knowing of our plans...

_Ohredos!? _I yelled in surprise, and Juvia only gasped. The amount of people in the guild was now doubled, as every one had a copy to fight. The guild turned from quiet and depressed to filled with fights, spells flying around and screams. The puppets all attacked, as Ohredos crossed our arms and smirked, obviously enjoying what was going on, while we could only stare in horror.

There was something different about the 'soldiers' this time. Instead of crumbling when stabbed into, spells just went through their body, without them even reacting to it.

_Juvia's body is made of water... and her magic is water too... Her magic combined with the one of Mr. Ohredos and Ilse-san's... _Juvia whispered as she connected the dots.

_...means that the puppets are immune to almost everything. _I finished her sentence. Spells flew around. Everyone was trying their best to defend themselves, there just wasn't much they could do...

"Damn it!" shouted Natsu, barely dodging a punch and punching back with a flaming fist, but as soon as he hit the inky mass, his flames extinguished. "What's up with these things?" He moved out of our vision. Now Erza caught my attention. She was wearing her Japanese cloth, and swung around her swords. Not only slicing her copy multiple times, but also the ones around her. It didn't help much though. It only hold them in place for a second or two.

"Everyone!" Lucy screamed out of nowhere. "It's no use attacking the puppets!" She had summoned Taurus, who was swinging his ax at the duplicate. "Attack the main source!" Smart girl.

For a brief second, time stopped. Everyone glanced at us. And at this wonderfully timed moment, Gray spurted into the guild, panting and coughing.

"Wait! She's not who you think she is!" He yelled, running towards us. Ohredos found the whole thing probably entertaining, because he made all his soldiers pause the fighting and didn't intend to stop the ice mage too. With a quick move, Gray pulled the hood of our head, revealing Juvia's face. The whole guild gasped, and whispers filled the ear deafening silence.

"It's Juvia..." "How is that possible..." "Isn't that Ilse's scarf?..." "She spoke with Ilse's voice too..."

"Ilse and, or Juvia." Erza stepped forward. "Explain what's going on." There was a tiny waver in her voice. She too was shocked, although she was very good at containing it.

Ohredos pulled our face into an evil grimace.

"It was my purpose from the beginning, to infiltrate your shitty guild..." The hatred sounded thought his voice, my voice... "...and destroy it from the inside out. And that's exactly what I'm going to do." He turned around to face Gray, causing us to groan from a new wave of pain. "And about Juvia... I killed her."

_What...? Why would he say that... _Judging by her tone, Juvia was on the edge of bursting into tears. Cries arose in the guild hall. Wendy sank to her knees, Lucy clasped her hands in front of her mouth and Natsu visibly boiled with rage.

"I killed her!" Ohredos continued, louder. "So I could fuse with her body and become even stronger! And now I'm here to wipe out the rest of you!" And with the last words, he gestured his puppets to resume the attack. He started laughing, and I became rigid. A laughter so dark, and evil. At that moment I swore to myself that I would beat him. I would beat him and never let him use someone's voice and body for his own gain. Never ever.

_Juvia is alive, Juvia is right here! Juvia isn't de-ea-ead-d. _She broke down, letting out the fear, anger and sadness she had hold back for a long time. Loud sobs sounded though our head, luring me to join in and lose all hope too. But I couldn't. I was frozen with anger.

But every emotion I felt, soon washed away, as despair took the lead. How Ohredos could have gotten so powerful in such a short time, I didn't know. But that he was too strong to beat, his soldiers having the advantage, was crystal clear. Every wizard inside was so busy not getting beaten down, since everyone had a copy made to face them when our cover was blown. But...

Gray had entered the guild a little while later...

"You..."

_Gray(-sama)!_

Ohredos quit laughing and looked at the raven-haired, who had already taken a fighting stance. "You killed her..." his voice was soft, deep... thought there was no sign of anger. Just disbelief. "I don't understand..." he let go of his stance. "First you tell me she's okay, and now you say you killed her?" He frowned.

_Juvia is alive, Gray-sama! Juvia can hear you! Gray-sama! _There was new energy in her voice.

Ohredos scoffed at his confusion. "What's so hard to understand, boy?" He crossed our arms. "Is it so hard to tell when someone tells a lie?" Gray's mouth formed and 'o' shape.

_No, Gray... I wasn't lying... _I whispered. Oh how I wished I could speak right now.

Gray's mouth formed and 'o' shape. "What..." He eyes lit up. "You're someone else, aren't you? The way you move and talk is different... And your magic... You're that bald wizard using the stone-molding magic!"

I smiled. I couldn't describe how nice it's to hear when your friends trust in your innocence... or at least don't believe your a killer...

Ohredos grinned. "Oh, you're a smart one. Okay then, I'll tell you a nice fact: the water-mage is alive, and so is the ink-mage. They're both trapped in this body. And..." his voice deepened. "they are going to watch you die."

Gray eyes widened, as he surged forward. But he was too late to stop what was already happening.

A enormous magic circle appeared under our feet, in a very dark blue color. The same happened to all the puppets, spread across the guild. They slowly began to light up.

"INK MAGIC: EXPLOSION"

And that tiny sentence meant the end of the world.

All my senses, except for my eyes, stopped working. That, and I could feel the shallow, unsteady breathing as I had forgotten how breathing actually worked. The guild was embedded in a bight light, and it was a cruel beautiful magic. But as soon as the light died out, the true damage was visible.

Or maybe there wasn't even enough of the guild left to call it damaged.

Because, instead of standing inside a building, we were standing in a crater.

_Ah... Ah... Ah... Ah... _Juvia sounded like she was hyperventilating. I was impressed she could even breathe.

Where was everyone?

Why weren't they here?

Were they gone?

Where was Lucy, who would always cheer everyone up? Where was Natsu, annoying the hell out of everyone but secretly making them smile? Where was Erza, enjoying her cake? Where was Happy, with his fish? Where was Gray, who had turned from a rather cold person to a loving one? Where were Levy, Gajeel, Mira, Cana, Wendy, Carla, Elfman, Lissana, everyone?

Gone. They weren't anymore. They had vanished with the pretty light of the explosion. They were gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

_Gone. No... no... no... no... NO NO NONONONONONONO! _I started screaming louder and louder. I couldn't take it anymore. Everything. Everything I did for this mission was to save my friends. It wasn't supposed to go this way. We were supposed to get a happy end, not the death of our friends.

_Gray-sama... Juvia *hiccup* still wanted to live happily with you... Juvia still wanted to be friends with everyone... _Her voice was so broken, her soul was teared apart. Everyone she loved. The ones who befriended her, took her in as one of them. The one who made her rain disappear. All those people were... were... they were...

"Yes they are dead now. And there is nothing you can do about it." Ohredos words cut me like a thousand knifes.

But I couldn't care less about what he said. A thought had popped up in my head. A thought that almost made happy. No wait, it made me happier than ever.

Though, as soon as I wanted to tell Juvia, a new voice, a shocked one, sounded from behind us.

"What the hell happened here?"

Ohredos turned us around. Laxus, Evergreen, Bickslow, Freed and Makarov were standing at the edge of the crater, looking down at us. Makarov raised an eyebrow.

"Juvia? What is going on?"

"Ad tempum preasens!"** Was Ohredos' answer. With confused faces, the last four members of Fairy Tail watched us leave.

****: To the present!**

**I feel like the quality of the story has dropped a few grades... I'm not at writing this kind of stuff at all... Oh well. I actually wanted to continue this chapter a little longer, but this felt like a good place to stop. **

**I'm so sorry I'm so late with updating these past weeks. I've just got a lot to do and not much inspiration. Wish me luck with the rest of my exam week!**

**Please be an angel and leave a review, it would make me super happy!**

**See ya,**

**-Ink**


	13. Return

**XD, I just started watching Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood). And the way Edward performs his alchemy, is almost the same way Ohredos summons his soldiers. The only difference is that Ohredos slams his fists together, while Ed claps his hands... I swear that I didn't know that before I wrote this. I'm so amused.**

When the spell to return to your own time is cast, the person returns to the same spot they cast the spell to go forward in time. So it was no surprise that we appeared at the hideout.

"Ugh!" We spat out some inky blood as we landed on the ground. The pain in our wound, which was dull before, had now come back again. "Aaargh..." I groaned while we rolled on our side, because the feeling of the dirty ground on the the hole in our back, where the lance had originally struck us, was terrible.

The first thing I noticed, was that I had full control over our body again. The weird, disconnected feeling was gone, and I felt as if I was a hundred times heavier. It felt good. Now I could feel the weight of moving again. But with this, the pain also felt more real. Which is not a good thing.

I tried to let us take short, swallow breaths to minimize the pain. It hurt less when we didn't breathe in deep, but we also had to breathe more times than normal, so it didn't help that much. As a matter of fact: every single movement was just painful.

For some reason, a checklist had formed itself in my mind, as if all emotions didn't work the way they should anymore. I was scared, shocked and sad, but I just didn't realize it that well. Survival instinct had the priority right now. Is this what happens when a human is in an emergency?

I started going down all the points:

1: Make sure your companion is okay.

Juvia. Was she even conscious? I hadn't heard her since we came back. There was no way she could be... No, that was a worst case scenario. I was afraid to ask, but I still did:

_Juvia? Are you... are you okay? _It was silent for a few seconds, and I started worrying. But then...

_Gray-sama *cough*... G-Gray-sama... _She sounded weak, and I could imagine how her eyes were wide, her pupils small, her face pale as snow...

She was obviously in shock, trying to process everything that had happened. But she was still alive. She was hurt, horrified and going to break down again. And she was still alive. I was beyond relieved.

2: Investigate your surroundings.

Judging by how far we were laying from the fireplace, we were probably a few meters away from the water sphere. I couldn't see anyone from this position, but I at least knew where we were.

3: Localize any direct threats.

I supposed those were behind us. With lots of moans and soft cries from both me and Juvia, we rolled over, now able to see what had been going on behind us all this time:

Ohredos was floating inside the sphere, a despicable playful smirk on his face. He looked down at Yara, who was...

Crying and banging her hands against the hard surface of the sphere. She was shouting at the stone wizard inside, while using all her force to try to break the ball. Though, she had already used up almost all of her energy, and her fists only made soft thumps. I didn't know why I could only hear those sounds. Yara's mouth opened and closed, but I couldn't hear her screams. Only the sounds of us breathing and of Yara desperately trying to get to Ohredos were registered by our ears. Why was Yara...

I dozed off for a moment. My thoughts, together with my consciousness, kept trailing off. Though, after hearing Juvia, still suffering and crying for her beloved, I focused on my checklist once more. I couldn't let her down.

4: Inspect injuries and give first aid.

Our breathing was even more shallow than before, giving off the sign that we were losing too much blood. If I wanted to stop the bleeding... No, we didn't have enough strength to rise and look for something to stop the bleeding. We needed help... from Yara and Ohredos.

They hadn't noticed us yet. They were too busy with... whatever was going on. But, would they even help us when I made us known? No wait. They had to. If we would die now... no... wait... what? We wouldn't...

The matter was too confusing for me to take time and think about it. I needed to handle fast. It could be a risk, but there wasn't anything else that I could do.

"...help..." My voice was crooked, and only a whisper came out. Maybe because I was hesitant?

At first I thought: they won't kill us, or dispose of us, because then the us in the future would die, and their plan would fail. But come to think of it, we had already returned from our travel. So if something would happen to us now, would it affect our actions in the future? I guessed not. If no one interfered with the members of Fairy Tail and tell them what's going to happen, everyone would act according to the future... So it's easier to dispose of us so we wouldn't tell anyone...

Although, on the other hand, I wasn't completely sure if that was true... Maybe something unexpected could happen when we died right now. And there wasn't anything else that I could do. Asking for help was the only option left. I tried shouting again.

"...Help" My voice was still too soft to be noticed. I gritted our teeth. Come on! We were dying here! I braced myself, and took a deep inhale...

"HELP!" Now it worked. Yara turned around immediately. Her eyes widened in shock, as she ignored Ohredos, who looked up at us with a quirked eyebrow and ran towards us to kneel down next to the expanding puddle of inky blood.

"Ilse! Oh god, we have to get them to them to..." She didn't finish her sentence. Ohredos had exited the sphere and was now standing behind her, his arm stretched out and his knuckles a little red from the punch he had just given Yara. I watched as she fell face-forward in our blood, and then how Ohredos lifted her and propped her on the ground beside of us. The last thing I witnessed was his creepy smile, before I blacked out

.

.

.

When I came to, we, instead of Ohredos, were floating around in the sphere.

_Ilse-san! You're awake! Juvia is so relieved!_ Juvia yelled inside my head. I flinched. Her voice was so loud it felt as if our head was going to explode.

_Juvia... _I was so tired. _What is going on...? _I almost didn't have energy to speak inside our head.

_Ohredos knocked Mrs. Yara unconscious and tied her up. _I raised my head a little and indeed, Yara was laying a couple of meters away from the sphere, her arms and legs bound. She didn't move.

_After that, he placed us into the sphere again, and walked away. He was mumbling something about wasting too much power on us or something. _She sounded so... determined. Full of energy... how?

_So... How long was I out?_

_About ten minutes. Not that long... How are you, Ilse-san?_

_I'm so tired... I've got no energy at all..._

_Are you in pain?_

I moved around a little. _Only when I move, but not even that much... Are you...?_

_No. Ever since we entered the water, Juvia isn't in pain anymore. Even when you move, it doesn't hurt. Water is Juvia's element, after all._

_Good... _At that moment, Ohredos came walking back, frowning and reading through the book he was holding is his hand. When he reached us, he closed it and tossed it away. He smirked, making my heart beat faster. What was he going to do?

A magic circle appeared under the sphere. Ohredos started walking around it, while chanting a spell. I couldn't hear what he was saying through the sphere though. As the circle grew larger, I started feeling weirder. Ink started spilling our of our pores, before dissolving in the water.

_What is he trying to do? _Juvia sounded scared. But there was something strange about her voice. It didn't sound in my head anymore, but as if it came from beside me. And while the ink was disappearing, our skin didn't turn into Juvia's pale one, but into my chocolate brown one...

_I think... we're splitting up... Juvia..._

Just like when we merged together, breathing became hard again. Every inhale felt endless, as if breathing for two. Gosh, I hated this feeling. Knowing you get oxygen, but still feeling like your suffocating. Although, unlike last time, our vision didn't darken. Instead, it split in two. The right one became hazy, while the left one got sharper, which meant that it was probably mine. The right one eventually faded.

_Ilse-san... _Her voice sounded so distant now.

_Y-yes...?_

_Get ready._

And then we split.

It was different than how I had expected it. There was no ripping sound, like the one you get when tearing apart a piece of paper, or any sound for that matter. First, there was the weird way of breathing. And just like that, my breathing was normal again. Dizzily, I stared at my arms, my own arms. Complete with rough skin and guild stamp on the wrist. I was wearing my own orange and red clothing. The hair floating around me was mine... I looked to the side. But Juvia, who had already recovered from the changes, looked at Ohredos. He stood outside, watching his success in splitting us.

And then an insane smile formed on his face, as he knelt down on the ground and cast a spell. I expected his soldiers to rise from the ground, but instead, six arms broke through the floor of our hideout, all holding a sword. They surrounded the sphere, their blades pointed towards us. Ohredos brought his hands together, and the stone ones reacted. With incredible speed, they forced their swords through the surface of the sphere, causing it to break and let the water in it flood the place.

"AAAARG!" As soon as I wasn't surrounded by water anymore, a terrible pain shot through my body. I collapsed, my limbs going numb.

"Ilse-san!" Juvia screamed, her gaze switching between me and Ohredos.

"Oh?" The man chuckled in the most evil way possible. "Looks like the ink girl took all the damage... interesting." He now referred to me as 'the ink girl' or 'the ink-mage'. He didn't use my name anymore. Somehow, this was the definition of him being evil. I moaned and slowly moved my hand to my belly. The wound was still there...

"Juvia's body is made out of water..." The blue-haired whispered...

"So when we split, your body healed its self." I coughed, finishing her sentence. Ohredos snickered at the scene.

"This will make things much easier for me! All I have to do, is deal with Water-Girl here!" And with those words, he let the stone hands jab their swords into Juvia. But she didn't even take the effort to dodge them.

"Didn't Juvia just say that her body is made out of water?" She rose her hands and used a Water Slicer to cut the swords apart, an angry frown on her face as she was looking down. "Physical attacks wont work on her." She let the water whirl around us, creating a dry spot where we were. "Stone can't cut water apart. But water can cut stone. Meaning that Juvia, mistress of the water, can easily defeat you!" She rose her head, finally looking the stone wizard in the eyes. With a terrifying scream, she unleashed all of her power in a single attack.

"WATER NEBULA!" The huge amount of power blasted Ohredos backwards. He landed on the ground with a dull thump, and sat up to hold his head in pain for a few seconds. This Juvia was so different than what she was like when Ohredos still had control over us. Instead of the helpless crying girl, she now looked strong and self-confident. A whole new side of her that I respected and admired.

"Tch, looks like I underestimated you there, Water-Girl." he groaned while he got back on his feet. But before he could make his move, Juvia cast the same spell again and sent him skyrocketing. I smirked a little despite everything. Even the most cunning villain could overlook something. When he was far away enough, she ran to my side and helped me up.

"Ilse-san!" She ripped a part of her dress off and held it against the wound to stop the bleeding. "Can you stand? Juvia is going to get you out of here!" She lifted me and slung my arm over her shoulders, supporting me while we stumbled towards the trees. When we reached the forest, I took the risk to look back once.

Ohredos had hit his head against a rock, a little trail of blood was seeping out of a cut on his forehead. He was breathing heavily, and his hands moved around to look for something to help him get up. The whole place was one big mess thanks to Juvia's whirlpool. Books were scattered around the floor, mud covered everything and shards of glass from the sphere drifted around in puddles of water. My eyes wandered over the rubbish until I found what I was looking for: Yara.

"Juvia..." My voice was hoarse. "Rescue Yara too..."

The blue-haired's eyes widened. "But Ilse-san. You can barely walk! How can Juvia support two people?"

"B...but we can't leave her... with him..." I whispered. "He'll kill her..." Juvia frowned.

"Okay then." she said resolutely. She softly propped me against a tree and went to get the woman. While she used her magic to cut the ropes holding Yara apart, I kept and eye on the still dazed Ohredos, ready to warn Juvia when we got up again.

It turned out Yara had been conscious all this time, and had acted like she didn't so she could eavesdrop what happened. If she had been conscious, Ohredos would have locked her away, she told us afterwards.

Juvia and Yara each took one of my arms, lifted me and together we fled away into the forest. Leaving behind the bald wizard with his heart of stone. Once there was enough distance between us and the hideout, we dropped on the ground, all panting. I felt my consciousness slipping away while Yara and Juvia slowly got up and took deep breaths to regain some stamina.

"Guys..." Was that even my own voice? "I don't feel so super..."

"ILSE!"

**Yay! Okay I know, short chapter, long time no update. PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! *hides***

**Next chapter is chapter 14, which means: Bonus chapter! I'm going to rewrite some scenes with different pov's again. It helps me focus better too.**

**Last chapter broke kind of a hole in my confidence, because I feel like I forgot how to describe emotions... Gosh, I made my plot almost to hard to write for myself... *sighs* Well, I'm going to finish this story anyway.**


	14. What we said: Gray and Juvia

**We have reached the 10 favorites! AAAAAAH! I can't describe how happy I am! Thank you so much!**

Gray: finding out Juvia is gone

A few changes had been made in my life.

The first one: letting someone in my heart for real. I felt weird, exposed. But now that I had finally admitted that I actually liked Juvia, although I still didn't really know in what way, I felt kind of relieved. It only resulted in the guild trying to get us together even more, but now I didn't care that much anymore. After having my heart closed off for so long, I was scared for this change. It was easier than I had expected though, and of course Juvia was in a bliss.

The second one: Along with my heart, my behavior changed too. I didn't tag along with my team that much anymore, and spent my time caring for Juvia. It felt like something I had to do. She deserved it after all, and after Poluchka stated that it actually helped, I spent most of my time at her side.

The downside to all of this? It left me exposed to pain much more than I had expected.

What pain you ask?

The one when I found out she had vanished.

After not going on a job for four days, Natsu and Lucy basically dragged me along with them so that I could get some money too. Erza wasn't there for some reason- not that I minded, since she'd probably endlessly scold me about everything. And that would have been extra hard, since I already received a lot of scolding from Lucy.

"Yes, I know that you want to be with Juvia, which surprises us all, but you can't just ignore yourself! You need money, time and rest too!" She had told me while pointing her index finger at me. "I don't even know where you stay these days, but you're going to lose your place if you keep slacking off! Besides, we're a team, and since Erza and Ilse are absent for today, we need a third person to accompany us."

"Pfff, as if we need that ice-cone here." Natsu had scoffed from the background.

The job (catching all the fire lizards that were rampaging through a farmers crops) was exhausting. Natsu, who had tried to fry them, was put aside by the farmer for burning his cabbages, so Lucy and I had to do most of the work.

So when we arrived back at the guild, tired, with burns from those stupid beasts and incredibly annoyed, the first thing I did was go to the infirmary to check up on Juvia.

"Hey Juvia, I'm back. How are you?" I said while entering the room and closing the door behind me. I walked to her water bath, my eyes half-closed in exhaustion and my mind not completely clear. She didn't respond, though that didn't surprise me. She hadn't been able to talk all this time. She didn't need to. Her face was an open book. I opened my eyes to look at her.

Only to find out she was gone.

First, I though that Poluchka had maybe moved her to another place. The guild was noisy, which could be a problem. Sighing because I didn't know about that fact, I left the infirmary and went to the main hall. At the bar, I found Erza, talking to Mirajane.

"Oy, Erza. Where have you been?" I asked curiously. She turned around, putting her hands on her hips and having a strict expression. "...And what's with the maid's costume?"

Her face darkened. "Do you have a problem with it?"

Sweating, I held up my hands in defense. "No, no! I'm just interested." The dark aura around the red-head disappeared.

"Oh, me and Ilse have cleaned Juvia's apartment so she could recover there. Poluchka's orders." I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding.

"So I guess she is there already then?"

Erza raised and eyebrow. "Ilse or Juvia?"

"Juvia, of course!" Wasn't that obvious?

"That's impossible. I just left there. There's no way she could be there this fast. It would take time to place her water bath there..." She stopped when she saw my confused look. "What's wrong?"

Crossing my arms and frowning, I muttered: "Juvia isn't here either..." Our eyes widened at the same time. Just as realization hit, Poluchka came rushing into the guild hall, along with Wendy.

"Juvia is gone!"

Everyone who was in the hall at that time rushed towards her, firing questions at the two, and some even making their own story out of this.

"How can she be gone?"

"She can't move, can she?"

"Does this mean she's better?"

"Maybe Gray kidnapped her!"

"Or Phantom Lord is back and kidnapped their old comrade!"

"No way! She would never go back there!"

"Gray, did you do something with that lovely lady?"

"Actually, where is he?"

I could feel a vein throbbing on my head.

"SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!" The words had left my mouth before I even realized it. All eyes were on me while I pushed myself towards the center of the crowd, Erza right behind me.

Wendy, sweet, shy Wendy, had tears in her eyes. I crouched until I was on the same level of height as she was and lightly held her shoulders. "What happened?"

"We-we just came back from some research and wanted to check up on J-Juvia. But when we entered the infirmary, she wa-wasn't there..." Her hands were clenched into fists, trying to restrain the tears from falling.

"Weren't you planning on moving Juvia to her apartment?" asked Erza, eyeing a frowning Poluchka. The woman's eyebrows raised in wonder.

"No, what are you talking about? Moving the girl in her condition would be a bad choice!" she put her hands on her hips and moved forward, almost pushing her forehead against Erza's to empathize how stupid we were for even considering. Erza, obviously oblivious to that act, turned around and put her index finger on her chin.

"That would mean that Ilse lied..."

"Ya think?" I said, my voice thick with sarcasm.

I guess that girl wasn't as good of a friend as we had thought...

Juvia: her nightmare. (3rd person pov, 'cause how do you write 1st person pov with someone who speaks in 3rd person?)

"Hrgmnnn..." Juvia squeezed her eyes together to block the light that shone on her face. Slowly, it dimmed down until she could open her eyes without unnecessarily blinding herself. She sat up and rubbed her face with her hands. It took a while before her mind was completely clear, but as soon as she could think straight, she started looking around. There wasn't even that much light coming from the end of the huge cave she was in, and the light that was there came from a huge blue object.

Blue object...

The sphere! With a shock Juvia realized where she was, or at least she guessed. According to what she had heard from her friends, this would be the cave where they had fought Yara and Ohredos and where the original hideout was. Juvia didn't know herself, since she had been in an unconscious state during the time she had spent here. She spun around. Yes, there was the staircase Ilse had complained about ("It was so long!") and on the other side of the cave was the sphere.

Her mind still had to be a little fussy, because she was suddenly standing next to it. With half-shut eyes she gazed at the person she had just noticed floating around in it. It had to be a man, since he was only wearing navy boxers. Her eyes traveled over those his abs... his chest, shoulders... face...

"Gray-sama!" she screamed, her heartbeat raising tenfold. "How did you get in there?!" she pressed her hands against the glass like object. The ice-wizard was pale, deadly pale. His eyes were slightly opened, and upon hearing his name, he stirred a little. "Gray-sama... Juvia is here..." Ignoring her own rising panic, she tried keeping her voice as soothing as possible. For some reason she knew he was confused.

And then from one moment to the other, everything escalated into total chaos. Gray's eyes opened normally, and then grew wide while he tried to shout something at Juvia, but there was one problem at hand: the lack of air. He grabbed his throat while bubbles escaped his nose and mouth, kicking his feet to get to the none existent surface of a none existent sea. Instead he banged his head against the upper side of the sphere, causing a soft and still horrifying thud sound. Desperately trying to escape he fired his ice lances at it, but it was useless.

Juvia had watched this all with wide eyes, her mind trying to process what was going on. "G-Gray-sama?" She shook her head wildly to get the foggy feeling out of her head.

"GRAY-SAMA!"

She had to get him out of there. While the panic tried to freeze her body, her heart beating a million times per second, her mind took the upper hand and forced her to act. "WATER SLICER! WATER NEBULA!" She kept firing spells at him, but to no avail. There wasn't even a single scratch. Trying to keep her breathing under control, Juvia looked around to find something like a rock, hoping she could break the thing without magic, because maybe it nullified it? Gray's lances hadn't worked either.

Nothing, not a single object besides the sphere. Scared for what she might find, Juvia slowly turned her head back to her beloved. Only to find him floating unconsciously, his eyes closed and his arms hanging lifeless to the ground. Not a single clue giving hope that he was still alive.

"Gray-sama! Gray-samaha ha ha ha..." His name changed into endless sobs, showing how devastated the blue-haired girl was. All she could think was that she was the one who should have been in his place. What did he do to deserve this? Nothing! It was her past that wasn't the best! She was the one that had been in the wrong guild, serving bad people. Not him! He had been sad his whole youth, he should have been happy! That was Juvia's place!

Now hysterically, Juvia threw her body against the sphere, crying her eyes out and begging for anyone to save Gray.

"Juvia!" A voice called her name, and it was obviously not Gray's. Juvia didn't care in the world who was calling her. It was Gray or nothing.

"Juvia, wake up!"

**Okay, I know. Short chapter, not that good of a quality. But oh well, I just wanted to get over with it. Gomen...**

**Updates: I have wifiiiiiii! I haven't had wifi the past week, and it bugged me so much! (is that sad?) But now I'm up to date with all the stories I'm reading! Yay!**


	15. Reasons and Flashbacks

**What, another update so soon? Yes, I wrote the previous chapter and this one simultaneously, and after not updating for so long, you deserve a little xtra, right? There doesn't happen much this chapter, though. And I think the same goes for the next, but I decided that I'm going to write the ending of the story first, so that I have that done. So I will be working on the story, it just wont result in me updating sooner or later. Sorry for that.**

**Enjoy!**

Hot.

It was hot. The duvet of my bed was nearly suffocating me. Still, I knew that as soon as I would throw it off of me, I would get cold the next second. Not that I had the strength for that, though.

"Ilse? Ilse, you've got to wake up." Someone shook my shoulder, trying to get me to turn around and face them.

"Hrrmpfff..." I replied, totally not ready to wake up. The person sighed, and chuckled lightly afterwards.

"Come on, honey. You don't want to miss a test right? What subject was it-" She, it was a female voice after all, cupped my face with her hand, but stopped speaking when she felt how hot it was. There was a short silence, and I took that time to try and fall asleep again. I could just barely hear what she said next: "You were talking about your lower belly hurting yesterday, weren't you? Perhaps it's an idea to stay and home and see if things get better, hmm?" Then I dozed off.

"...yes, I've been trying to wake my daughter up for about two minutes now, but she doesn't respond. She has been complaining about her belly aching and she has a high fever too." The same voice came from another room now, and instead of the soft way she spoke before, she sounded worried. "I tried that, yes. But nothing worked. Could you please send someone to check her, or should I bring her to the hospital?" A short silence, the one on the other end of the line was probably speaking. "Yes, okay, I'll bring her there then." A phone was put back in its charging station. There were some hasty footsteps in the hall which then entered my bedroom again.

"Ilse, come on, wake up!" More shaking, which indeed made my belly hurt badly. I finally opened my eyes to tell her to stop it, but when I did everything suddenly turned white, and then... green?

The shaking hadn't stopped though- in fact, it was even rougher than before.

"S-stop... it..." I croaked out, though I almost couldn't hear it myself, thus the shaking continued. I mustered up some strength and tried again. "Stop it!"

"Ilse-san! You're awake! Thank goodness!" Juvia chirped, and my eyes finally focused so I could see her. She was kneeling aside of me, her hat shoved to one side and little bags under her eyes, as if she had slept poorly. Above her head, tree branches were visible, their leaves blocking the sunlight from shining in my eyes. The sky above was blue, with a cloud here and there. I tried sitting up, but as soon as I did, my vision turned blurry and a wave of pain went through my body. Juvia pushed me back into laying position. "You shouldn't get up now, Ilse-san. We only stitched your wound and bandaged it. It could open with the least amount of movement."

I gulped, not enthusiastic over the news about my wound. It was a weird idea, getting told in what condition you are by others. Sighing and looking around, it occurred to me that I didn't recognize a single thing.

"We're in the forest, a day walk away from Magnolia." My heartbeat raised as a new voice answered my unasked question. Yara moved into my field of view. She looked just as tired as Juvia, and was missing the lower part of her dress. Following my gaze, she snickered lightly. "We didn't have any bandages, so we used our clothes. Juvia showed me that her outfit was missing the lower part too.

"How did we get here?" I asked, on guard. Although I was the one who wanted her to be rescued, I still didn't trust her. She had been part of everything, after all.

"Juvia and I carried you. We're being wanted by two parties now- your guild and Ohredos. So we've been on the move ever since we fled."

Our guild. Fairy Tail. Images of our time travel came back to me and repeated themselves in my head. The fight, the explosion, especially the explosion. Pushing the horrible memories to the background, I studies Juvia's face. A small tear found its way down her cheek, and she moved her face away to hide her sadness. I felt so bad for her- her whole world had been, or rather, was going to be destroyed.

I was not going to let that happen.

"Yara is right," I spoke up. "We're wanted by Fairy Tail, which means that Fairy Tail still exists at this very moment." I smiled, feeling my own mood going up. "We know what's going to happen, so we also know we can prevent that, right?" After hearing that, Juvia's gaze shot back to me, her eyes wide.

"Ilse-san... yes! Juvia didn't think of that! Fairy Tail is still alive! Gray-sama is still alive! We haven't lost yet!" She clasped her hands together, obviously overjoyed by this fact.

"But," interrupted Yara, a scowl on her face. "The time travel has already happened, so we can't stop you from going to the future and Ohredos taking over your body." We let her words sink in for a moment.

"Why would we want to stop ourselves from going to the future?" Juvia then shot back. "There is still the demon Ilse-san and Juvia have err... kept sleeping. And Gray-sama was there too... We just need to prevent Ohredos from using our body to get to the guild and destroy it."

"You can't beat Ohredos!" Yara sounded scared. "You only knocked him out now because he was so certain of his victory that you took him by surprise! You'll never match him in a battle!"

We all fell silent again, pondering over Yara's words. Until another sound filled the silence- my stomach, hungry for some food.

"Juvia believes we have some berries left she plucked a while ago. Would you like some, Ilse-san?" I nodded, and tried to get up again to reach for the pile of blue-berries she had pointed to. But Juvia got mad.

"Ilse-san! Keep still or you'll only hurt yourself!" she said while pushing me back to the ground and getting the berries for me. "You need to stop doing everything by yourself. You've been taking care of Juvia all this time, now let Juvia care for you. It's okay to have others look after you."

"It's okay to have others look after you, Ilse. If you always try to console everyone and making sure others have a good time, you'll get depressive yourself eventually. Stop trying to control everything and let others have a part in it as well."

Everything turned white and suddenly I was sitting in my room, my desk-chair turned towards the bed where a woman was sitting. She had the same color eyes and hair as me, although her skin was a couple of shades lighter than mine. Her face sported a few tiny wrinkles, though I could guess that she wouldn't like to hear me mention them. Placing her hands in her lap, she spoke again.

"Do you hear what I'm saying? If you keep doing everything in someone else's favor, you're not an interesting person to them anymore, since you'll always do the same. Talk back for once! You're Ilse! You're a nice girl and even if you're not as nice for once, doesn't make you a bad person!" She patted on the spot next to her, gesturing me to come sit there. I did, and she hugged me tightly. "Next time you get into an argument with her, you're going to wait for her to say sorry. Even if she's right, she's got to learn that things won't go the way she wants them to go, don't you think?"

"Yes..." I heard myself say.

"Good... now, how about we eat pizza tonight?"

I was going to reply, but someone started shaking me again, and the scene faded away and was replaced by the slightly panicked face of Juvia.

"Ilse-san! Ilse-san!"

"Stop it! It hurts when you do that!" I blurted out, grabbing at my bandages hoping to ease the pain a little. Juvia quickly released my shoulder.

"Juvia is sorry! You weren't responding anymore, and we were scared you lost consciousness!"

I blinked a few times. Did I really pass out? "I... I don't think I lost consciousness..." Placing a hand on my head, I blocked out all the light to help me think better. "No... you just... reminded me of something?" Was that true? Had it been a memory? "I guess..."

"Can you tell us exactly what happened?" Yara put her index finger on her chin, as if she was thinking deeply. I sighed, telling them what I saw and heard these couple of... "How long was I out?"

"About 30 seconds. Long enough to make us worry, that is." responded Juvia. Yara snapped her fingers.

"It's a side effect!" she stated, as if that could clarify everything. Upon seeing our confused faces, she elaborated. "We restored a part of your memory, not? But I already told you that the rest of could come back later. I think that you're having flashbacks." She folded her arms in front of her chest. "Every time you experience something that resembles something you've experienced before, even if it's only a slight resemblance, you'll have a flashback to that earlier moment."

"I... I... that does make sense..." I whispered. I thought back to the woman I'd seen in all of my previous flashbacks, also the one I got when under that boulder. I was almost certain that she...

was my mother.

Tears started appearing in my eyes from the realization. My mom. Yes, the mom who was probably waiting for me right now on... Earth... in Amsterdam...

"Ilse-san...? What's wrong?" Juvia's voice was filled with worry. Quickly wiping my tears away, I forced myself to smile, not wanting to share this yet. My mom was _my _mom, and I just wanted to keep it to myself for a little while.

"Nothing, nothing. I'm just happy I can remember who I am again." I waved off.

"How about we get on the move?" proposed Yara, standing up and dusting herself off. "Juvia, if you carry Ilse, I'll walk behind you and make sure we're not followed or anything." Juvia nodded and started helping me to get into a sitting position so that I could climb on her back, but I held up my hands.

"Wait. I'm not making the same mistake again. I know I was the one wanting you to be saved from Ohredos, but how do we know we can trust you?"

Juvia gasped. "Ilse-san. Miss Yara saved your life. She was the one who knew what to do when you collapsed after we fled! Why would she do that if she wasn't trustworthy?"

"Because she was a part of the same plan!" I raised my voice. "She new all about this, didn't you?" Yara avoided my gaze, but I didn't give up that easily. "Well, didn't you?"

She sighed, giving off the sign that she gave in. "Yes... I did..." I couldn't help but scoffing in victory. "But... it isn't what you think... Well... perhaps it is. I don't..." I wanted to snap something back, if Juvia didn't beat me to it, trying the softer way.

"Miss Yara, can you please tell us everything you know?" Her voice was reassuring, and a lot less harsh than mine. Yara visibly lived up when she understood Juvia was still on her side- or at least not against her.

"I guess I can..." the woman started. "Okay. Ohredos and I are members of the dark guild called Kurai Mirai**..." She shoved her long ponytail out of the way to show us her guild mark in the nape of her neck. It was a black five pointed star encircled with arrows around it, which were pointing in a circle. How come I never noticed? "...It's a guild that sort of stands on the side line and watches over the smaller dark guilds. But it isn't a part of the Barram Alliance.

"Juvia always thought all the dark guilds acted on their own..." pondered Juvia out loud.

"That's true, they do. In fact, most dark guilds don't even know about us. You could say we are the secret council of the dark guilds... Anyway, there was a small dark guild that had heard of Fairy Tail, and they wanted to prove that they were better than Oracion Seiss and Grimoire Heart by destroying it. They learnt about the sleeping demon under Magnolia and decided waking him up would be a good way of dealing with the Fairies. Gildarts destroyed them before they could proceed with their idea, but because they messed around in that cave so much, the ceiling became unstable. Ohredos found out when we came by on our way to visit someone here in Magnolia who is talented in making you could say... special potions. He sells them saying they are love potions to people..."

Juvia paled, and was suddenly very interested in her shoes.

"But that aside," continued Yara. "Ohredos is able to feel changes in the earth that aren't natural, so he immediately knew about the weak cave and we went to investigate. That's how we found the demon. We didn't dare to touch the ceiling yet, since it could respond be either falling apart at once or not, and we didn't feel like getting crushed, so I decided to see if I was able to see when it would crumble. As you know, it will be within a month. We then decided that we would wait, and see if we could use this fact to our advantage. That's where you come in, Ilse."

"You mean that you knew that I would errr... get here?" I asked.

"No, that was total coincidence, and it's still a mystery how you got here. But when we found you, I could feel something was off, so we actually first took you in for errr... investigation." she confessed.

"Wow... harsh..." I muttered, frowning. I was feeling tired all of a sudden, and gestured Juvia to help me lay down without too much pain. She did, and then sat beside me, pulling her knees to her chest.

"I know... well, eventually, Ohredos came with the idea of using the demon as an alibi for getting to destroy Fairy Tail without any clues leading to us."

"But didn't you and Ohredos kidnap Juvia and fight with us? They know that you have something to do with it..." Juvia tapped her fingers on the ground in thought.

"The outside doesn't know about that, only Fairy Tail does. And when it's destroyed, there would be no one left to tell, right?" Yara looked away in shame. The plan was truly disgusting indeed. "I think that's all you didn't know... the rest of the plan was to let you, Ilse, gather up power and make them trust, and distrust you, re-kidnap Juvia and well... the rest."

There was a short silence, but then something occurred to me. "You said that your guild is on the side line, then why does it want to destroy Fairy Tail?" Yara smiled lightly.

"Fairy Tail is _the_ main enemy for most dark guilds these days. You guys destroyed two of the large dark guilds, plus they are tired of your "nakama" quotes and stuff, even though I've learned that they are true. Ohredos hates you deeply."

"Okay... and then this, how come you don't?"

"Don't anymore," she corrected me. "I used to hate Fairy Tail just as much, but I guess you guys made me see the light? And when I found how nice it is when you're accepted, even if it is only to let you reassure someone, I thought it was way better than always being hated. Plus, I was tired of everything. I wanted to oppose Ohredos. I'm just too much of a coward to do it."

I quirked an eyebrow. "That sounds a little too goody goody to me."

"But miss Yara proved she is on our side! You saw how hysterical she was when we got back, Ilse-san!" Juvia shot back, waving her hands. I sighed.

"Good, I'll trust you, but I'll still be on guard. How about that?"

"Thank you," Yara said, her eyes lighting up. Maybe she really was trustworthy. "I appreciate it, Ilse. I know this is hard for you after everything."

The bushes behind us moved a little, and we all froze, holding our breath. When we saw a bunny shooting away, we nervously laughed and winked at each other, knowing that we all thought Ohredos had been eavesdropping us.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way, how about we get our positive mood back and try to come up with a way to beat Ohredos?" Yara said while clapping her hands together.

"But as you said earlier, no one of us can beat him, even if we all work together." Juvia stated. An image of us all battling against Ohredos and failing withing seconds popped up into my head. Not the cheeriest thought. Wasn't there anyone who could battle that guy, someone we knew, and who was...

"Laxus!" I suddenly shouted, startling both Yara and Juvia, who started looking around them wildly to see where the Lightning Dragon Slayer was standing. I chuckled. "No, he isn't here. Laxus and his tribe aren't at the guild when we get there! We can ask them for help! The master too!" A wide smile appeared on my face. Not all hope was lost.

"Really? Juvia didn't see them... although Juvia was too devastated to notice, actually..." Juvia closed her eyes, concentrating to see if she could remember anything.

"And I don't think they are willing to help us..." Yara said, looking down.

"But they'll help Juvia! She's a guild member, and she was taken by force, remember!?"

Juvia's eyes widened. "Juvia can explain them everything! Yes!"

The bushes moved again, a little more this time, but no one paid attention to it. We were too caught up with this good news.

Fairy Tail wasn't beaten yet.

****: I just played around with google translate here. It's the direct translation of "dark future" in Japanese.**

**Okay, that was chapter 15. After rewriting the first part a couple of times, I'm quite confident about how this one turned out. And at least I managed to get some plotholes out of the way... right? *chuckles nervously* I was such a fool, beginning with writing before knowing what the plot was going to be, urhg. Never doing that again.**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter! Let me know what you think!**

**See ya,**

**-Ink**


	16. Tell them or not?

**I AM SO SORRY!**

**It's been a month! A freaking month! How did it ever come to this!?**

**This chapter is just a little something to make the wait a little less dull. It's more of a filler chapter, I guess. Sorry again...**

"Why not?"

"Because it'll be dangerous! We're messing with time here!"

"But still, it would be the easiest thing to do..."

"I just don't want to!"

Juvia fell silent, and tilted her head in a curious manner. "Why don't you want to tell the guild, Ilse-san?"

After we had decided that we were going to ask the Raijin Tribe for help, it didn't take us long to realize that we didn't have a single clue where they even were. And the _thing _would happen in 18 days, excluding today. It could be that they left the guild the day before, or were already gone. It would be hard to ask them for help, unless...

We told the guild everything.

Something that I really, really didn't want to do.

Juvia, on the other hand, was a hundred percent for it, and kept mentioning the idea. I said the same thing every time. We could dangerously change the future, in a way that we could wake up the demon. Of course, there was some truth to that. Gray had saved us from being crushed that time, but what if he got suspicious, or doubt would hold him back from doing the same again... Either way, we would die, and the demon would wake up, destroying Magnolia, Fairy Tail and probably even more.

But there were a lot of things left to counter that argument. We could ask guild members to help our past/future- what were we now?- selves. You could say that Ohredos would notice that, and get to know that something was off, but he hadn't entered our body then, so we should be good. Anyway, there was no solid reason for not telling the guild. So what was holding me back?

I honestly didn't... really... know.

"Please tell Juvia, why not?" Juvia got me back to reality by waving her hand before my eyes. "Were you having a flashback again, Ilse-san?"

I blinked a few times. "No, no... I just spaced out, that's all," Staring at the sky, I sighed deeply. "Look, can we talk about this later? I'm tired." To emphasize my statement, I yawned and rubbed my eyes, before slowly rolling to my side, my back facing the bluenette. I listened to her rising to her feet and walking away, presumably to where Yara was trying to get a fire ready for boiling water. I shoved a little to make myself more comfortable. I didn't feel tired at all, it was just a cheap way of changing the subject, and Juvia knew that.

In fact, I felt guilty. Very guilty. I was holding Juvia back from meeting her friends-or family- and I had no legit reason for it. It was just... the thought... of talking to the people who hated me... I was scared, I guess. Even thought Juvia told me they would forgive me when they knew everything...

"Is Ilse asleep?" Yara's voice was almost too soft for me to hear.

"Yes, she went to sleep not all too long ago. But Juvia thinks she's just evading Juvia's questions..."

"About the guild, right?" There was a hint of annoyance in Yara's voice. I didn't blame her in the slightest...

"Juvia wishes she'd know Ilse-san's reasons... but she's secretive," A short silence fell, followed with Juvia mumbling. "Ilse-san is probably scared to face everyone... but Juvia is sure that she knows, deep inside, they'd understand her. Juvia thinks that Ilse-san just needs support."

"I can affirm that Ilse knows all of Fairy Tail's traits. She knows almost all of their adventures..." Yara paused, and I could imagine Juvia quirking an eyebrow, or at least look surprised.

"How can Ilse-san know all our adventures? Or did Lucy-san tell her everything that happened?" Swallowing, I realized that this was the moment Yara was going to explain everything to Juvia. About the whole "Creators, Takers, Elaborators" thing, and the fact that I have read all the manga...

Perhaps... Yes, they were right. During every arc I read about, Fairy Tail was very forgiving. Just look at Juvia and Gajeel... I had never thought of that. But yeah, it's already very weird to talk to people who were just fictional in my world. And since I didn't think that Hiro Mashima would ever make an arc where a person from my world would enter Earthland, it was safe to say that I was here because of a story that an Elaborator created...

Wait, did that mean that I was fictional too? I was here... and the only way I could be here was if someone wrote a story about me getting here... D-did that mean that someone described me thinking this? Did I even have a free will of my own?

My head started throbbing, meaning only one thing.

Flashback.

They had started to become very, very annoying. My body would go numb, and my mind would be fully occupied with the moment that played before my eyes. Most of the times, I could yell something before I blacked out, but I was so drowned in my own thoughts that I didn't expect a flashback to occur. Till now, it were events or severe emotions that triggered my memory to take me away from reality.

When my eyes were adjusted to the light, I was sitting in a classroom, my hand supporting my head, which felt very heavy. The student's tables were set in a circle, and one half had the sign "We have a free will" and the other, were I was sitting, had a "We do not have a free will" sign.

"Okay then," the teacher, a middle aged woman with soft eyes, spoke up. "Who wants to give the first argument?"

I cringed, feeling very anxious, and looked around for any students who wanted to speak up, but everyone looked just as anxious as me. I assumed we were debating in philosophy class.

"Ilse? Why don't you start for once?" My heart stopped, and I felt my nervousness rise as I got up from my chair. I took a deep breath and started to speak.

"I-I do not think we have a free will, because every human on this earth is influenced by each other. Therefore, every idea we come with, has been influenced by at least one other person. Each idea is some sort of spin off from another idea, which was a spin off from another idea, and so on. For example, when you write a story, you were inspired by an event, or at least something you read, or saw before. And when something is called original, it could be a new way the same situation is described... I guess..." I sat back down, before the real stuttering began. I felt how the gaze of all the students was pointed towards me.

The teacher now turned to the other side. "Is there anyone who can counter this argument?"

A few hands rose, and the teacher picked a small looking boy with blonde hair. He looked determined, and for some reason I knew that he was part of the debating club.

"I don't think that's completely true, for this can be true for ideas and stuff, but what about opinions? Even thought there are people who let their opinions be influenced by the opinion of the majority, there are also people who have an opinion of their own, and are not afraid to express that, like I am doing right now!"

The teacher looked back at me. "Ilse, can you say something about that?"

With more confidence, I rose again. "Yes. See, you can have an opinion, but you can either think that you are for or against something. You either like, or dislike something..." I stopped, because this was going nowhere. And while staring at the smirk of the same boy, everything went white, and I went back to reality.

"...And that's how Ilse came here." Yara had just finished explaining as I opened my eyes and turned around so that I could see them. A fire was burning brightly between the two women, who were sitting under a... dark sky?

"Did I sleep?" I mumbled aloud, catching their attention.

"Ilse-san! You're awake! You've been asleep for hours!" Juvia rushed to my side, one hand stretched to the fire, keeping the glob of water above the fire afloat to let it heat up.

"I... I had a flashback... but I didn't expect that I would fall asleep right after..." Covering my eyes with my arm, I thought about everything I saw, which wasn't that important, but it helped me forget it better.

Yara joined us. "I explained everything about where you come from to Juvia, I hope you don't mind." It was more of a statement than a question. Not that I minded.

"Yeah, I heard that..." I yawned. "I guess it's time to talk."

Juvia and Yara looked at each other, before both sitting down and looking at me with curious gazes. Taking the hint, I folded my hands behind my head and started talking.

"Okay, I wont say stuff about where I come from, because I'm still unsure about that myself. And as for telling the guild..." I sighed in defeat. "It's okay... Let's tell them."

Juvia visibly lived up at this, and a genuine smile plastered her face. She lunged towards me and pulled me into a tight hug. "Thank you, Ilse-san. Juvia... Juvia knows this is hard for you."

I patted her back. "Alright alright. It's fine. Can you let go of me... please? This kinda hurts." The sudden movement had put a lot of pressure on my wound. I didn't really mind though. Juvia was happy and that meant a lot to me.

Pulling back, Juvia wiped a small tear from her face. "Ilse-san..."

I raised my hands. "No, don't. I'll try to explain," As if on cue, the water floating above the fire started boiling, and Juvia divided it into three globs and gave them to us, using leaves as cups. Now it almost felt like a tea-party. I chuckled. "Look, of course I feel guilty about all this mess that I caused, even if it isn't my fault entirely. But the one thing I feel truly bad about, is that I didn't notice what you and Ohredos..." I shot a look at Yara, scared to continue. But she smiled and gestured me to go on. "... were planning. I mean, I could've easily seen that something was off. Ohredos was acting weird all the time, and Yara... your behavior was also strange, considering I thought we were doing something justified..." I stopped. Was it even necessary for me to continue? I was sure they understood.

"Ilse-san..." Juvia scooted a little closer and rested her hand on my shoulder. "Juvia doesn't think you need to feel responsible for what happened. You fought your way through it way better than Juvia was able to, and Juvia thinks Juvia is the one who was blind for everything."

I shot to her defense. "No! First of all, you were ill, and second of all, you slept through most things! I spent weeks with them while you was asleep. I should have noticed! You-"

"Stop it."

Juvia and I both turned towards Yara, who was clenching her fists and staring at the ground. When she spoke again, her voice was thick of emotion.

"You both need to quit blaming yourselves. If it was someone's fault, it's mine and Ohredos'. We were the ones who came up with everything! I... if someone is taking the blame anyway, let it be me." The woman cringed under our gazes. Juvia crawled towards her and swung an arm around her shoulders.

"Juvia understands. She wont blame herself anymore, and the same goes for Ilse-san," A very determined look was shot towards me, causing me to gulp. Though I would have agreed anyway. "And Juvia also thinks that we should forget about who's fault this all is, and focus on the main issue right now. How are we going to tell Fairy Tail?"

"Like this," I replied.

* * *

"Okay then, Juvia will go now." She tried to sound calm and collected, but I knew she was bursting of happiness inside.

"Just go!" I snickered, hanging onto Yara's shoulder. I felt a little better, but moving still hurt a lot, and I was barely able to walk, even with support. Yara and I watched her almost run towards the entrance of the guild.

The plan was pretty simple. Juvia would go meet the guild members, greet everyone. And once everything would have calmed down, she would explain to everyone what happened, and then we would be able to enter the guild without getting attack from all sides.

"Hey, who do you think will hug her first?" I asked Yara, smiling.

"I bet one of her friends... oh wait... never mind." I didn't have to tell her that everyone in the guild was practically a friend.

Just before Juvia entered the guild, she turned around and waved towards us, and gave a thumbs up. We happily replied, and the next moment, the guild erupted in a deafening "JUVIA!?".

**Yes.**

**Yes I know, it was way shorter than usual. I'm slowly crawling out of a block, and I truly apologize for having it in the first place. I hope that the next chapter will go more smoothly, but I can't promise anything.**

**I hope you guys don't mind.**

**Anyway, see ya! And thnx for reading!**

**(And it would make me super happy if you'd leave a review. Just saying... XD)**


	17. Don't tell A, Tell B

**Ink!?**

**What are you doing posting a short chapter, not all too long after you posted last one, which was also short?**

**Well, today was the first day of school... And I can already tell that it's going to take much more of my free time than it did last year... So I'm going to have less time to write or plot of whatever. That's why I'm updating this one early, as a last thing before I have to be a goody-goody student and study. XD**

**Sorry for this weird and short chapter. (again...)**

I didn't know who was happier, the guild, Juvia, or me. I was just sitting there, my back leaning against the wall surrounding the guild, listening to all the cheers. Was I weird for being this happy for Juvia and her friends? Maybe, but I guessed that everyone in the same situation would feel this way.

Of course, there were also nerves. I couldn't stop playing with my hair, the edge of my skirt, my scarf, until it started to irritate Yara, who was standing next to where I was sitting.

"Ilse, can you please stop that? You're making me nervous too."

I looked up at her, blocking the sun with one hand. "Weren't you nervous in the first place, then?"

"Of course I am!" snickered the woman, closing her eyes and letting the sun warm her face. "But I trust Juvia when she says that the guild will be reasonable. I'm sure that they wont accept me as easily as they will accept you..."

Sighing, I followed her lead and closed my eyes too, letting the sun rays help me relax a little.

"Ilse..."

"Hmm...?"

"Ilse...!"

"What?" I opened my eyes again and gazed questioningly at Yara. Her eyes were wide, and she was looking intensively at something at the guild's entrance. I turned my head around to see what could spook her that way...

"Oh oh..."

Gray Fullbuster was walking towards the entrance from the other side. His head was hanging down and he had a grumpy expression on his face. My heartbeat rose to a million per second as cold sweat started running down my back. I remembered very well how he reacted the last time he saw me... and that was in the future.

I was stuttering from the sudden adrenaline. "Q-quick, we've go-gotta get o-out of here! Last t-time he went c-completely insane!"

Yara immediately yanked me up and swung my arm over her shoulder. We started hobbling away, desperate to get out of sight, so that he would just enter the guild without seeing us. He didn't know Juvia was back yet...

Unfortunately, our movement caught his attention, causing him to look up. Startled, I looked over my shoulder, staring right into his eyes. They were wide, filled with incredulity. For a moment time stopped, as I was captured by all the hurt that this boy had gone through. Not only losing his parents, teacher and her daughter... but also the person he finally opened up to. Just to lose her in the blink of an eye.

That moment was soon over, and the pain transformed into an anger, piercing straight through my heart. The temperature dropped till the point were Yara noticed our staring contest and turned around too, gasping at the sight of the incredibly raged ice wizard. Said element started forming around his feet, and his fists were glowing a light blue.

"You..." He was gritting his teeth so hard that I could barely make out what he said. "How dare you come here!?" He spread his hand besides him, slowly bringing his fist towards it. "HOW DARE YOU COME HERE AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO JUVIA!?" The fist reached the palm, and a magic circle appeared.

"ICE MAKE: LANCE!"

I was thrown into a déjà vu, not a flashback, as I watched the lances fly towards us, expecting them to hit me in the exact same spot as they did before... or in the future. _It'll be alright... It'll be alright... _I automatically spoke in my head. I had to dodge them... I didn't want to have Juvia experience the same pain again...

"Ink magic: Shield!"

A thick, inky shield formed itself before us. I turned towards Yara, who was holding out two pencils, a circle of ink floating before her. Immediately, I remembered where we were, and how I wasn't merged with Juvia anymore, who was safe and well inside the guild. She was meeting all of her family, except one...

"Gray!" I yelled, trying to overrule the noise of ice breaking through the quickly fading shield. "Juvia's inside! She's safe!"

He didn't hear me. His eyes were blank, as if his pupils had vanished from the pure rage.

"Ilse, back me up!" Yara screamed. I tore myself from Gray's eyes and finally noticed that the shield was almost at the point of breaking. With shaking hands, I took my pencils from my belt, filled them with ink from my small sphere and drew the same shape as Yara had done.

"Ink magic: sh-shielAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!"

A searing pain shot through my body as I felt my magic power flow towards the shield and strengthen it. The wound in my gut throbbed with all it's might, causing me to feel like I could faint any moment.

How could no one in the guild notice us? If Gray couldn't hear me through the noise, it meant that at least the whole street could hear this. Was the cheering inside so loud that it could outdo this? And how could no one see the flashes of magic? But on the other hand, a lost comrade had returned. As long as we stood our ground, I was sure someone would come and help us...

Gray, on the other hand, had decided that head-on attacks wouldn't work, and made another move. In a split second the ground had turned into ice. Yara and I both slipped, the shield dispelled...

And as I hit the ground, a large wrinkle in the ice found its way into my back. The pain was similar to the one I had felt when Gray had struck us from behind, back in the small room at the end of the stinky alley. Everything turned white and...

A drawer? Why a drawer?

Why was I holding a spoon?

...

Why was a knife coming from out of my belly?

...

This was just a flashback, right?

. . .

Wait... if this was a flashback...

. . .

Had that really happened to me in the past?

I thought those things while I watched the face of my mother, begging me to stay with her as she stroked my hair.

.

.

.

As fast as the flashback had occurred, as fast it disappeared. I was laying on the ice, my body completely numb. I saw how a puddle of blood expanded beneath me. I saw how Yara was dazed from the impact of her head on the hard surface, but her eyes were open. I saw how Gray's eyes were now completely overtaken by anger, as he prepared his last attack.

And I saw how Juvia ran towards him, grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him violently, before hugging him. And slowly, slowly his eyes got their normal color again. Shocked, he stared at Juvia, and then at us... and then my consciousness drifted away.

...

"Hrmmm..."

I opened my eyes, surprised that I could fully open them without a problem. The room was dark, except for the faint light that shone from the windows. Stirring a little, I noticed that I was laying on a bed, covered by a thin blanket.

"So, back again?"

I almost jumped as the lights turned on, showing a slightly pissed Poluchka. She stomped over to me, her pink hair bobbing up and down. "Thanks to you, I had to get out of bed in the middle of the night because this wound was too much for Wendy to handle."

My hand traveled towards my belly, and I fingered the thick bandages around it. I didn't feel any pain though.

"H... how...?"

"Wendy healed most of the damaged tissues. But even so, some of your organs still aren't completely back to normal. Although they were only grazed," She put her hands on her hips. "How in the world did you get such a wound?"

"I... we were attacked by... wolves... in the forest." I lied. I studied the room I was lying in, and came to the conclusion it was the guild's infirmary. Guess who was back...

Poluchka shook her head. "Sure. Look, there are some people waiting outside. I'm going to let them in now, otherwise they'll fall asleep there from the waiting. And sleeping on bare wood isn't good for your back," She walked towards the door, mumbling something like "This is why I hate humans so much..." and opened it. Juvia stormed inside, throwing the door against Poluchka's face.

"ILSE-SAN! JUVIA WAS SO WORRIED!" she wailed, dropping herself next to my bed and clutching my hand. Yara followed shortly after, grinning a little.

"Yara, you okay?" I asked, getting rid of my concerns.

"Yes, actually," replied the dark-haired woman. "All that's left is a little headache." She laughed for a little, but then her face became serious. "Ilse... about the guild..."

Juvia took over. "We haven't told them yet. Juvia has been evading all questions, and occupied everyone by just hugging them and so on. She was suddenly having doubts about all this... Gray-sama's rage scared Juvia..."

As she spoke those words, all the memories of the previous events played through my head, sending a shiver through my body. I pushed them to the back of my head for now.

"I... I think that's good, actually! Yeah!" I paused for a moment, taking in Juvia's worried gaze. "Look, Ohredos can't know that we are here, and it's a miracle he hasn't found us before, but I think he'll stay hidden for now. But he'll be near our past selves as we walk around in time to make sure everything goes how he knows it will go if we don't interfere."

"So he'll know something is up if Gray-sama doesn't hurt us!" exclaimed Juvia.

"And he will never hurt us on purpose. Last time was an accident, and if we tell him all this, he won't act according to what we saw."

"But Ohredos doesn't know why or how Gray hurt you, only _that _he did it," Yara pondered out loud. "As long as Gray gets upset with your past selves somehow, he'll do it."

"True, but Gray will only get so upset when he discovers something's wrong with Juvia and I'm responsible for it," I replied, feeling awful having to talk about him this way. "He still distrusts me, so we'll have to make use of that."

"So... how do you want to do that?" Juvia asked.

"Let's not tell the guild everything, and take some people apart to tell the truth later." I suggested.

"Laxus, the Raijin tribe and the Master?" Yara asked. I nodded.

"Yes, I say we tell the guild how I was found, why I had the lacrima in me, but change the original plan. Something like: Juvia's strength and water magic was needed to develop a huge magic source for Yara, an ink-mage, to be granted the power to travel into the past, and change it in a way that Kurai Mirai was granted with much money or that a certain dark guild isn't destroyed or something. But you used the alibi that you want to look into the future to see what happens with the demon and stuff," Thinking for a few seconds, I continued. "Then we say you, Yara, didn't want to proceed with the plan, and we all got into a fight. That's how I got wounded, and we fled."

"And we can say that you and Ms. Yara want to stay in the guild for protection!" Juvia added.

"Precisely!"

After a bit more deliberating, we decided it was time to go and meet up with the guild members. But first, we wanted to talk to the master and tell him the whole story. Maybe he could help us sound more believable...

After Juvia had left to go get him, Yara looked me in the eye.

"Ilse, when you hit the ice, something weird happened. It seemed like you blacked out, but you were tensing all your muscles and your face kept twitching in this unnatural way, until you opened your eyes again..."

"... and blacked out for real." I finished her sentence. I felt how my body started to tremble and tears appeared in my eyes. "I... I was having a flashback..."

She tilted her head. "About what?"

Biting my lip to keep the tears from spilling, I mumbled. "Remember that time after Ohredos removed the lacrima and I woke up again...?"

"Yes, you had a bad dream, which you told me abou..." She put a hand on her mouth, muffling the next words a little. "You don't mean that...!"

I nodded in response.

"Oh, Ilse..."

A single tear rolled down my face, and she bent down to wipe it away. I let her do it, even though I expected it to be futile. The flashback had left me scared and uncertain... I was sure I could burst out crying any moment.

But the opposite happened. After a few sniffs, I actually felt a little better. Perhaps it was the slight nervousness I felt for the coming events, or the fact that there were people here I knew they'd always, always support me. Either way, more than just this little one tear didn't come out. I let out a shaky sigh, and smiled. I was surprised how genuine it felt.

"...Even if that has happened to me, and even though I don't know what happened after, I'm going to make sure the future is going to turn out just fine!"

Yara returned my smile and was about to say something, when Juvia opened the door and let Master Makarov in, along with the Raijin Tribe and Gildarts, all wearing grim expressions on their faces.

"So, Ilse, miss Yara. Please tell me what's going on, and why you requested us to not let anybody else in right now." Makarov said as he sat down on one of the beds.

"Juvia thought it would be smart to also let Gildarts in on this." The water-mage whispered into my ear. "She's sure that Gildarts could easily beat Ohredos. Also, she can't recall seeing him at the guild when 'it' happens..."

I grimaced at that news. Ohredos and Yara sure had a smooth plan. The date when the ceiling at the demon's cave collapsed, was also a day when Gildarts, the master and the Raijin Tribe weren't present, leaving the guild vulnerable enough for such a surprise attack.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" grumbled Makarov. I shot Yara a _can-you-please-explain-I'm-too-tired-to-recall-everything _look, and she started confessing every bit and piece of Ohredos' and her plan, together with what had happened until now. I added something to her story here and there. But eventually, my eyes started to close by themselves, and I only gave a slurry "hmm-hmm" while Yara explained what happened in the forest...

and then I fell asleep, certain that tomorrow was going to be a break from all the stress and violence for once...

**And that was it for this time, guys! I hope you liked this chapter!**

**I enjoyed writing the first part... ghehehehehe...**

**PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW! Reviews are the #1 thing that keep me going. Even though I don't get that many. XD**

**See ya!**

**-Ink**


	18. I'm sorry

**To my dear readers,**

**I'm sorry. But I won't be continuing this story. To be honest... I don't like it anymore. I started writing the first chapter randomly, and just dealt with the plotholes that came after that. I don't want to be writing like that, because all I've been doing until now was covering the plot mistakes I made in the beginning. It makes the writing a job, not a hobby. And it always has to stay fun, doesn't it?**

**I feel really, really bad. But if I don't do this, it'll keep nagging me from inside, even though I know I don't have a way for it to end properly anymore.**

**Maybe I'll do a rewrite somewhere in the future, because I really like Ilse's character. But for now, it's time to say goodbye to Fairies and Ink.**

**The stories I'm working on right now won't have any OCs in them. It's mainly fluff based.**

**I'm sorry, I really am. And I don't like doing this. **

**I hope you'll be openminded about this. I know most of you will, though. You're all too kind. ^^**

**Thanks for staying with me, and until the next story!**

**See ya,**

**-Ink**


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